VE%      ^lOS^CEia^       ^OFCAllfO)?/^     ^^FCAIIFOM^ 

/•so#    %a3AiNft'mv^     %Anvi!8n#    "^AHvaan-^ 


rc      itf 


ft 


rn       ij     ■     ■  ■ 


^ 


JM£«NIVER%.       A^lOSANCElfj> 


g.jO'^     %0inY3»iO'^       %^lW^ni^      %a3AiNn-i«^^ 
IFO«^     ^OFOUIFOff^ 


Pi! 


^       ^ 


^\>  11  ui  n .  Liio/^       A^lOS'ANCEl^j^ 


an-^    ^^omWi^ 


yS> 


/^%.      ^lOS'ANC!t%        ^t-UBMY^^,      -#'UBRARYQc, 

i  |(oC!i    i  J(oi 


I?        <?»- 


n 


I 


^ 

^ 


J| 


1   3 


^YQ^^     #ubra; 
f^   _S  1  If 


iFOff^ 


-5S\!UNIVE% 


li 


^.lOSANCEl£j^       ^OF-CAUFOff^     ^0' 


m/A 


%J13AINrtlV^  >&Aava8iH^ 


^l-UBRARYO^ 


%)jnv. 


^<?Aava 


^WE-UNIVER%^ 


9- 


% 


^-StlBBARYQ, 


^ 


,§ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/curiositiesliter01disr 


CURIOSITIES    OF    LITERATURE. 


Sim  HQHWM  SCHOOL, 

Los  Angeles,  Oal. 


IJTAJlC  J54$1^^IK3^2= 


CURIOSITIES  OF  LITERATURE. 


BY 


ISAAC    IHSEAELl. 

WITH  A  VIEW   OF  THE   LH'E  AXD  WRITIXGS 
OF  THE  AUTHOR. 

BY    HIS    SOX. 

THE    RIGHT   HON.  B.    DISRAELI. 

IN    FOUR    VOLUMES. 
VOL.  I. 


PBOM  THE  FOURTEENTH  CORRECTED  LONDON  EDITION 


i.^r 


NEW    YORK 

A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON 

714   Broadway 

1880 


University  Press  :  John  Wilson  &  Son, 
Cambridge. 


V>1 


TO 

FRANCIS  DOUCE,  ESQ. 

THESE   VOLUMES   OF   SOME    LITERARY  RESEARCHES 

AKE  inscribed; 

AS   A   SLIGHT   MEMORIAL  OF   FRIENDSHIP 

AXU 

A  GRATEFUL  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

TO 

A  LOVER   OF   LITERATURE. 


STATE  HaRIMl  SGHQOL. 

Los  Angeles,  Cat. 


PREFACE. 


Of  a  work  which  long  has  been  placed  on  that 
shelf  which  Voltaire  has  discriminated  as  la  Bihlio' 
theque  du  Monde,  it  is  never  mistimed  for  the  author 
to  offer  the  many,  who  are  famihar  with  its  pages,  a 
settled  conception  of  its  design. 

The  "  Curiosities  of  Literature,"  commenced  fifty 
years  since,  have  been  composed  at  various  periods, 
and  necessarily  partake  of  those  successive  charac- 
ters which  mark  the  eras  of  the  intellectual  habits 
of  the  writer. 

In  my  youth,  the  taste  for  modern  literary  history 
was  only  of  recent  date.  The  first  elegant  scholar 
who  opened  a  richer  vein  in  the  mine  of  Modern 
Literature  was  Joseph  Warton  ; — he  had  a  fi"ag- 
mentary  mind,  and  he  was  a  rambler  in  discursive 
criticism.  Dr.  Johnson  was  a  famished  man  for 
anecdotical  literature,  and  sorely  complained  of  the 
.penury  of  our  literary  history. 

Thomas  Warton  must  have  found,  in  the  taste  of 
his  brother  and  the  energy  of  Johnson,  his  happiest 
prototypes :    but  he   had  too   frequently   to   wrestle 


PREFACE. 


with  barren  antiquarianism,  and  was  lost  to  us  at 
the  gates  of  that  paradise  which  had  hardly  opened 
on  him.  These  were  the  true  founders  of  that  more 
elegant  literature  in  which  France  had  preceded  us. 
These  works  created  a  more  pleasing  species  of  eru- 
dition :— the  age  of  taste  and  genius  had  come ;  but 
the  age  of  philosophical  thinking  was  yet  but  in  its 
dawn. 

Among  my  earliest  literary  friends,  two  distin- 
guished themselves  by  their  anecdotical  literature : 
James  Petit  Andrews,  by  his  "  Anecdotes,  Ancient 
and  Modern,"  and  William  Seward,  by  his  "  Anec- 
dotes of  Distinguished  Persons."  These  volumes 
were  favourably  received,  and  to  such  a  degree,  that 
a  wit  of  that  day,  and  who  is  still  a  wit  as  well  as  a 
poet,  considered  that  we  were  far  gone  in  our  »  Anec- 
dotage." 

I  was  a  guest  at  the  banquet,  but  it  seemed  to  me 
to  consist  wholly  of  confectionery.  I  conceived  the 
idea  of  a  collection  of  a  different  complexion.  I 
was  then  seeking  for  instruction  in  modern  litera- 
ture ;  and  our  language  afforded  no  collection  of  the 
res  HtteraricE.  In  the  diversified  volumes  of  the 
French  Ana,  I  found,  among  the  best,  materials  to 
work  on.  I  improved  my  subjects  with  as  much  of 
our  own  literature  as  my  limited  studies  afforded. 
The  volume,  without  a  name,  was  left  to  its  own 
unprotected  condition.  I  had  not  miscalculated  the 
wants  of  others  by  my  own. 


PEEFACE.  ix 

This  first  volume  had  reminded  the  learned  of 
much  which  it  is  grateful  to  remember,  and  those 
who  were  resti'icted  by  their  classical  studies,  or 
lounged  only  in  perishable  novelties,  were  in  mod- 
ern literature  but  dry  wells,  for  which  I  had  opened 
clear  waters  from  a  fresh  spring.  The  work  had  ef- 
fected its  design  in  stimulating  the  literary  curiosity 
of  these,  who,  with  a  taste  for  its  tranquil  pursuits, 
are  impeded  in  their  acquirement.  Imitations  were 
numerous.  My  reading  became  more  various,  and  the 
second  volume  of  "  Curiosities  of  Literature"  ap- 
peared, with  a  slight  effort  at  more  original  investi- 
gation. The  two  brother  volumes  remained  favour- 
ites during  an  interval  of  twenty  years. 

It  was  as  late  as  1817  that  I  sent  forth  the  third 
volume ;  without  a  word  of  preface.  I  had  no  longer 
anxieties  to  conceal  or  promises  to  perform.  The 
subjects  chosen  were  novel,  and  investigated  with 
more  original  composition.  The  motto  prefixed  to 
this  third  volume  from  the  Marquis  of  Halifax  is 
lost  in  the  republications,  but  expresses  the  peculiar 
delight  of  all  literary  researches  for  those  who  love 
them  :  "  The  struggling  for  knowledge  hath  a  pleas- 
ure in  it  like  that  of  wrestling  with  a  fine  woman." 

The  notice  which  the  third  volume  obtained,  re- 
turned me  to  the  dream  of  my  youth.  I  considered 
that  essay  writing,  from  Addison  to  the  successors 
of  Johnson,  which  had  formed  one  of  the  most  orig- 
inal features  of  our  national  literature,  would  now 


X  PREFACE. 

fail  in  its  attraction,  even  if  some  of  those  elegant 
writers  tiiemselves  had  appeared  in  a  form  which 
their  own  excellence  had  rendered  familiar  and  de- 
prived of  all  novelty.  I  was  struck  by  an  observa- 
tion which  Johnson  has  thrown  out.  That  sage, 
himself  an  essayist  and  who  had  -lived  among  our 
essayists,  fancied  that  "  mankind  may  come  in  time 
to  write  all  aphoristically ; "  and  so  athirst  was  that 
our  first  of  great  moral  biographers  for  the  details  of 
human  life  and  the  incidental  characteristics  of  indi- 
viduals, that  he  was  desirous  of  obtaining  anecdotes 
without  preparation  or  connection.  "  If  a  man," 
said  this  lover  of  literary  anecdotes,  "  is  .to  wait  till 
he  weaves  anecdotes,  we  may  be  long  in  getting 
them,  and  get  bat  few  in  comparison  of  what  we 
might  get."  Another  observation,  of  Lord  Boling- 
broke,  had  long  dwelt  in  my  mind,  that  "  when  ex- 
amples are  pointed  out  to  us,  there  is  a  kind  of  ap- 
peal with  which  we  are  flattered  made  to  our  senses 
as  well  as  our  understandings."  An  induction  from 
a  variety  of  particulars  seemed  to  me  to  combine 
that  delight,  which  Johnson  derived  frorn  anecdotes, 
with  that  philosophy  which  Bolingbroke  founded  on 
examples  ;  and  on  this  principle  the  last  three  vol- 
umes of  the  "  Curiosities  of  Literature  "  were  con- 
structed, freed  from  the  formality  of  dissertation  and 
the  vagueness  of  the  lighter  essay. 

These   "  Curiosities  of   Literature "    have   passed 
through   a  remarkable   ordeal   of  time ;   they    have 


PREFACE.  xi 

survived  a  generation  of  rivals  ;  they  are  found  wher- 
ever books  are  bought,  and  they  have  been  repeatedly 
reprinted  at  foreign  presses,  as  well  as  translated. 
These  volumes  have  imbued  our  youth  with  their  first 
tastes  for  modern  literature,  have  diffused  a  delight 
in  critical  and  philosophical  speculation  among  cir- 
cles of  readers  who  were  not  accustomed  to  literary 
topics  ;  and  finally,  they  have  been  honoured  by  em- 
inent contemporaries,  who  have  long  consulted  them 
and  set  their  stamp  on  the  metal. 

A  voluminous  miscellany,  composed  at  various 
periods,  cannot  be  exempt  from  slight  inadvertencies. 
Such  a  circuit  of  multifarious  know-ledge  could  not 
be  traced  were  we  to  measure  and  count  each  step 
by  some  critical  pedometer ;  life  would  be  too  short 
to  effect  any  reasonable  progress.  Every  work  must 
be  judged  by  its  design,  and  is  to  be  valued  by  ita 
result. 

Bradenham  Hudse,  March,  1889. 


CONTENTS    OF    VOLUME    I. 


PAoa 

LIFE   AXD   WRITINGS   OF   THE   AUTHOR         ...  .3 

LIBRARIES 49 

THE    BIBLIOMAXIA .67 

LITERARY   JOURNALS 60 

RECOVERY   OF   MANUSCRIPTS 67 

SKETCHES    OF    CRITICISM 74 

THE   PERSECUTED    LEARNED 78 

POVERTY    OF    THE    LEARNED 81 

IMPRISONMENT    OF    THE    LEARNED 87 

AMUSEMENTS    OF    THE    LEARNED 90 

PORTRAITS    OF    AUTHORS 94 

DESTRUCTION    OF    BOOKS 100 

SOME   NOTICES    OF    LOST    WORKS 112 

QU0DLIBET3,  OR  SCHOLASTIC  DISQUISITIONS    .  .  .115 

FAME    CONTEMNED 122 

THE   SIX   FOLLIES   OF   SCIENCE 122 

IMITATORS 124 

JiaCERO'S    PUNS 126 

PREFACES 128 

EARLY    PRINTING 130 

ERRATA 135 

PATRONS 139 

POETS,     PHILOSOPHERS,    AND     ARTISTS,     MADE     BY     ACCI- 
DENT        142 

INEQUALITIES    OF    GENIUS 146 

GEOGRAPHICAL    STYLE 147 

LEGENDS 148 

THE    PORT-ROYAL    SOCIETY 154 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

P&QB 
THE    PROGRESS    OF   OLD   AGE   IN   NEW    STUDIES        .  .         158 

SPANISH    POETRY 161 

SAINT    EVKEMOND 163 

MEN   OF   GENIUS   DEFICIENT   IN   CONVERSATION  .  .    1 G4 

,VIDA  .  .  .  .        ■ 166 

THE   SCUDERIES     . I(j7 

DE    LA    ROCHEKOUCAULT 172 

prior's   HANS   CARVEL 173 

THE    STUDENT    IN    THE    METROPOLIS  .  .  .  .175 

THE    TALMUD 177 

KA15BINICAL    STORIES 185 

ON    THE    CUSTOM    OF    SALUTING   AFTER   SNEEZING        .  .192 

BONA  VENTURE    DE   PERIERS 194 

GROTIUS 195 

NOBLEMEN   TURNED    CRITICS 197 

LITERARY   IMPOSTURES 198 

CARDINAL   RICHELIEU 205 

ARISTOTLE    AND    PLATO 209 

AIJELARD   AND    ELOISA 212 

PHYSIOGNOMY 216 

CHARACTERS    DESCRIBED    BY   MUSICAL  NOTES  .  .         219 

MILTON 220 

ORIGIN   OF   NEWSPAPERS 224 

TRIALS    AND   PROOFS   OF   GUILT    IN   SUPERSTITIOUS    AGES      232 

INQUISITION 233 

SINGULARITIES  OBSERVED  BY  VARIOUS  NATIONS  IN  THEIR 

REPASTS 243 

MONARCHS 246 

OF    THE   TITLES    OF   ILLUSTRIOUS,  HIGHNESS,   AND   EXCEL- 
LENCE   249 

TITLES   OF   SOVEREIGNS .    252 

ROYAL   DIVINITIES 253 

DETHRONED    MONARCHS .    25^ 

FEUDAL   CUSTOMS .        258 

GAMING 262 

THE    ARABIC    CHRONICLE 266 

METEMPSYCHOSIS 268 

SPANISH    ETIQUETTE 271 

rilE    GOTHS    AND    HUNS  .......    273 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAoa 

VICARS    OF    BRAY 273 

DOUGLAS 274 

CRITICAL    HISTORY    OF    POVERTY 275 

BOLOMON   AND    SUEBA 280 

HELL 281 

THE    ABSENT    MAN 284 

WAX-WORK 285 

PASQUIN    AXD    MARFORIO 287 

FEMALE   BEAUTY   AND    ORNAMENTS  ....         290 

MODERN    PLATONISM 292 

ANECDOTES    OF    FASHION  .  .  .  .  .  .297 

A    SENATE    OF   JESUITS 314 

THE    lover's    HEART 31G 

THE    HISTORY   OF    GLOVES 319 

RELICS    OF    SAINTS 323 

PERPETUAL    LAMPS    OF    THE    ANCIENTS          ....    328 
NATURAL    PRODUCTIONS    RESEMBLING    ARTIFICIAL   COMPO- 
SITIONS          329 

THE    POETICAL    GARLAND   OF   JULIA 332 

TRAGIC    ACTORS 334 

JOCULAR    PREACHERS   337 

MASTERLY    IMITATORS        345 

EDWARD    THE    FOURTH 349 

ELIZABETH 352 

THE    CHINESE    LANGUAGE 356 

MEDICAL    MUSIC 358 

MINUTE    WRITING 365 

NUMERICAL   FIGURES 367 

ENGLISH    ASTROLOGERS 369 

ALCHYMY 374'> 

TITLES    OF    BOOKS 379 

LITERARY    FOLLIES 385 

LITERARY   CONTROVERSY 401 

LITERAKV    BLUNDERS 415 

A    LITERARY    WIFE 423 

DEDICATIONS 434 

PHILOSOPHICAL    DESCRIPTIVE    P0EM8              ....   439 
PAMPHLEIS 442 


LIFE  AND    WRITINGS 


MK.   DISRAELI. 


ON    THE 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  MR.  DISRAELI 

BY   HIS   SON. 


The  traditionary  notion  that  the  life  of  a  man  of 
letters  is  necessarily  deficient  in  incident,  appears  to 
have  originated  in  a  misconception  of  the  essential 
nature  of  human  action.  The  life  of  every  man  is 
full  of  incidents,  but  the  incidents  are  insignificant, 
because  they  do  not  affect  his  species ;  and  in 
general  the  importance  of  every  occurrence  is  to  be 
measured  by  the  degree  with  which  it  is  recognized 
by  mankind.  An  author  may  influence  the  fortunes 
of  the  world  to  as  great  an  extent  as  a  statesman  or 
a  wamor;  and  the  deeds  and  performances  by  whicn 
this  influence  is  created  and  exercised,  may  rank  in 
their  interest  and  importance  with  the  decisions  of 
great  Congi-esses,  or  the  skilful  valour  of  a  memo- 
rable field.  M.  dc  Voltaire  was  certainly  a  greater 
Frenchman  than  Cardinal  Fleury,  the  Prime  Min- 
ister of  France  in  his  time.     His  actions  were  more 


4  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

important;  and  it  is  certainly  not  too  much  to  main- 
tain, that  tlie  exploits  of  Homer,  Aristotle,  Dante,  or 
my  Lord  Bacon,  were  as  considerable  events  as  any- 
thing that  occun-ed  at  Actium,  Lepanto,  or  Blen- 
heim. A  Book  may  be  as  great  a  thing  as  a  battle, 
and  there  ai'e  systems  of  philosophy  that  have  pro- 
duced as  great  revolutions  as  any  that  have  dis- 
turbed even  the  social  and  political  existence  of  our 
centuries. 

The  life  of  the  author,  whose  character  and  career 
we  are  venturing  to  review,  extended  far  beyond  the 
allotted  term  of  man  :  and,  perhaps,  no  existence  of 
equal  duration  ever  exhibited  an  uniformity  more 
y  sustained.  The  strong  bent  of  his  infancy  was  pm*- 
sued  through  youth,  matm*ed  in  manhood,  and  main- 
tained without  decay  to  an  advanced  old  age.  In 
the  biographic  spell,  no  ingredient  is  more  magical 
than  predisposition.  How  pure,  and  native,  and 
indigenous  it  was  in  th^Q  character  of  this  writer,  can 
only  be  properly  appreciated  by  an  acquaintance 
with  the  circumstances  amid  which  he  was  born, 
and  by  being  able  to  estimate  how  far  they  could 
have  directed  or  developed  his  earliest  inclinations. 

My  grandfather,  who  became  an  English  Denizen 
in  1748,  was  an  Italian  descendant  from  one  of  those 
Hebrew  families,  whom  the  Inquisition,  forced  to 
emigrate  from  the  Spanish  Peninsula  at  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  and  who  found  a  refuge  in  the 
more   tolerant  territories  of  the  Venetian  Republic 


OF  THE  AUTHOR.  5 

His  ancestors  had  dropped  their  Gothic  surname  on 
their  settlement  in  the  Terra  Firma,  and  grateful  to 
the  God  of  Jacob  who  had  sustained  them  through 
unprecedented  ti'ials  and  guarded  them  through  un- 
heard of  perils,  they  assumed  the  name  of -^i^RAKLr, 
a  name  never  borne  before,  or  since,  by  any  other 
family,  in  order  that  their  race  might  be  for  ever 
recognized.  Undisturbed  and  unmolested,  they  flour- 
ished as  merchants  for  more  than  two  centuries 
under  the  protection  of  the  lion  of  St.  Mark,  which 
was  but  just,  as  the  patron  saint  of  the  Republic 
was  himself  a  child  of  Israel.  But  towards  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  altered  circum- 
stances of  England,  favourable,  as  it  was  then  sup- 
posed, to  commerce  and  religious  liberty,  atti-acted 
the  attention  of  my  great-grandfalher  to  this  island, 
and  he  resolved  that  the  youngest  of  his  two  sons, 
Benjamin,  the  "  son  of  his  right  hand,"  should  settle 
in  a  country  where  the  dynasty  seemed  at  length 
established  through  the  recent  failure  of  Prince 
Charles  Edward,  and  where  public  opinion  appeared 
definitively  adverse  to  persecution  on  matters  of  creed 
and  conscience. 

The  Jewish  families,  who  were  then  settled  In 
England,  were  few,  though  from  their  wealth,  and 
other  cu-cumstances,  they  were  far  from  unimportant 
They  were  all  of  them  Sephardim,  that  is  to  say 
children  of  Israel,  who  had  never  quitted  the  shores 
of  the  Midland  Ocean,  until  Torquamada  had  driv(^n 


LIFE   AND   WRITINGS 


them  from  their  pleasant  residences  and  rich  estates 
in  Arragon,   and  Andalusia,  and   Portugal,  to  seek 
greater  blessings,  even  than  a  clear  atmosphere  and 
a  glowing  sun,  amid  the  marshes  of  Holland  and  the 
fogs  of  Britain.     Most  of  these  families,  who  held 
themselves  aloof  from  the  Hebrews  of  Northern  Eu- 
rope, then  only  occasionally  stealing  into  England, 
as  from  an  inferior  caste,  and  whose  synagogue  was 
reserved  only  for  Sephardim,  are  now  extinct ;  while 
the  branch  of  the  great  family,  which,  notwithstand- 
ing their  own  sufferings  from  prejudice,  they  had  the 
hardihood  to   look  down    upon,  have   achieved   an 
amount   of    wealth    and    consideration   which    the 
Sephardim,  even  with  the  patronage  of  Mr.  Pelham, 
never   could   have    contemplated.      Nevertheless,   at 
the  time  when  my  gi-andfather  settled' in  England, 
and  when  Mr.  Pelham,  who  was  very  favourable  to 
the  Jews,  was  Prime  Minister,  there  might  be  found, 
among    other    Jewish   families,    flourishing   in   this 
country,  the   Villa    Reals,  who   brought  wealth    to 
these  shores  almost  as  gi-eat  as  their  name,  though 
that  is  the  second  in  Portugal,  and  who  have  twice 
allied  themselves  with   the  English  aristocracy,  the 
Medinas — the  Laras,  who  were  our  kinsmen — and 
the  Mendez  da  Costas,  who,  I  "believe,  still  exist. 

Whether  it  were  that  my  grandfather,  on  his  ar- 
rival, was  not  encouraged  by  those  to  whom  he  had 
a  right  to  look  up,— which  is  often  our  hard  case  in 
the  outset  of  life, — or  whether  he  was  alarmed  at  the 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  7 

unexpected  consequences  of  Mr.  Pelham's  favourable 
disposition  to  his  countrymen  in  the  disgraceful 
repeal  of  the  Jew  Bill,  which  occurred  a  very  few 
years  after  his  arrival  in  this  country,  I  know  not ; 
but  certainly  he  appears  never  to  have  cordially  or 
intimately  mixed  with  his  community.  This  ten- 
dency to  alienation  was  no  doubt  subsequently 
encouraged  by  his  marriage,  which  took  place  in 
1765.  My  grandmother,  the  beautiful  daughter  of  a 
family,  who  had  suffered  much  from  persecution, 
had  imbibed  that  dislike  for  her  race  which  the  vain 
are  too  apt  to  adopt  when  they  find  that  they  are 
born  to  public  contempt.  The  indignant  feeling 
that  should  be  reserved  for  the  persecutor,  in  the 
mortification  of  their  disturbed  sensibility,  is  too 
often  visited  on  the  victim ;  and  the  cause  of  an- 
noyance is  recognized  not  in  the  ignorant  malevo- 
lence of  the  powerful,  but  in  the  conscientious 
conviction  of  the  innocent  sufferer.  Seventeen 
years,  however,  elapsed  before  my  grandfather  en- 
tered into  this  union,  and  during  that  interval  he  had 
not  been  idle.  He  was  only  eighteen  when  he  com- 
menced his  career,  and  when  a  great  responsibility 
devolved  upon  him.  He  was  not  unequal  to  it. 
He  was  a  man  of  ardent  character;  sanguine, 
courageous,  speculative,  and  fortunate ;  with  a  tem- 
per which  no  disappointment  could  disturb,  and  a 
brain,  amid  reverses,  full  of  resource.  He  made  his 
fortune  in  the  mid-way  of  life,  and  settled  near  En- 


LIFE   AND   WRITINGS 


field,  where  he  formed  an  Italian  garden,  eiTtertained 
his  friends,  played  whist  with  Sir  Horace  Mann, 
who  was  his  great  acquaintance,  and  who  had 
known  his  brother,  at  Venice  as  a  banker,  eat  maca- 
roni which  was  dressed  by  the  Venetian  Consul, 
sang  canzonettas,  and  notwithstanding  a  wife  who 
never  pardoned  him  for  his  name,  and  a  son  wlio 
disappointed  all  his  plans,  and  who  to  the  last  hour 
of  his  life  was  an  enigma  to  him,  lived  till  he  was 
nearly  ninety,  and  then  died  in  1817,  in  the  full 
enjoyment  of  prolonged  existence. 

My  gi-andfather  retired  from  active  business  on 
the  eve  of  that  great  financial  epoch,  to  grapple  with 
which  his  talents  were  well  adapted  ;  and  when 
the  wars  and  loans  of  the  Revolution  were  about 
to  create  those  families  of  millionaires,  in  which  he 
might  probably  have  enrolled  his  own.  That,  how-  ' 
ever,  was  not  our  destiny.  My  grandfather  had  only 
one  child,  and  nature  had  disqualified  him,  from  his 
cradle,  for  the  busy  pursuits  of  men. 

A  pale,  pensive  child,  with  large  dark  brown  eyes, 
and  flowing  hair,  such  as  may  be  beheld  in  one  of 
the  portraits  annexed  to  these  volumes,  had  grown 
up  beneath  this  roof  of  worldly  energy  and  enjoy- 
ment, indicating  even  in  his  infancy,  by  the  whole 
carriage  of  his  life,  that  he  was  of  a  different  order 
from  those  among  whom  he  lived.  Timid,  suscep- 
tible,  lost  in  reverie,  fond  of  solitude,  or  seeking  no 
better  company  than  a  book,  the  years  had  stolen 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  9 

on,  till  he  had  arrived  at  that  mournful  period  of 
boyhood  when  cccenti-icities  excite  attention  and 
command  no  sympathy.  In  the  chapter  on  Pre- 
disposition, in  the  most  delightful  of  his  works,* 
my  father  has  drawn  from  his  own,  though  his  un- 
acknowledged feelings,  immortal  truths.  Then  com- 
menced the  age  of  domestic  criticism.  His  mother, 
not  incapable  of  deep  affections,  but  so  mortified  by 
her  social  position,  that  she  lived  until  eighty  with- 
out indulging  in  a  tender  expression,  did  not  recog- 
nize in  her  only  offspring  a  being  qualified  to  control 
or  vanquish  his  impending  fate.  His  existence  only 
served  to  swell  the  aggi-egate  of  many  humiliating 
particulars.  It  was  not  to  her  a  source  of  joy,  or 
sympathy,  or  solace.  She  foresaw  for  her  child 
only  a  future  of  degradation.  Having  a  strong 
clear  mind,  without  any  imagination,  she  believed 
that  she  beheld  an  inevitable  doom.  The  tart  re- 
mark and  the  contemptuous  comment  on  her  part, 
elicited,  on  the  other,  all  the  irritability  of  the  poetic 
idiosyncrasy.  After  frantic  ebullitions  for  which, 
when  the  circumstances  were  analyzed  by  an  or- 
dinary mind,  there  seemed  no  sufficient  cause,  my 
grandfather  always  interfered  to  soothe  with  good- 
tempered  common-places,  and  promote  peace.  He 
was  a  man  who  thought  that  the  only  way  to  make 
people  happy  was  to  make  them  a  present.      He 

*  "  Essav  on  the  Literan.^  Character,"  Vol.  I.  chap,  v 


10  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

took  it  for  granted  that  a  boy  in  a  passion  wanted 
a  toy  or  a  guinea.  At  a  later  date,  when  my  father 
ran  away  from  home,  and  after  some  wanderings 
was  brought  back,  found  lying  on  a  tombstone  in 
Hackney  churchyard,  he  embraced  him,  and  gave 
him  a  pony. 

In  this  state  of  affairs,  being  sent  to  school  in 
the  neighbourhood,  was  a  rather  agi-eeable  incident. 
The  school  was  kept  by  a  Scotchman,  one  Morison, 
a  good  man,  and  not  untinctured  with  scholarship, 
and  it  is  possible  that  my  father  might  have  reaped 
some  advantage  from  this  change;  but  the  school 
was  too  near  home,  and  his  mother,  though  she 
tormented  his  existence,  was  never  content  if  he 
were  out  of  her  sight.  His  delicate  health  was  an 
excuse  for  converting  him,  after  a  short  interval,  into 
a  day  scholar  ;  then  many  days  of  attendance  were 
omitted ;  finally,  the  solitary  walk  home  through  Mr. 
Mellish's  park,  was  dangerous  to  the  sensibilities 
that  too  often  exploded  when  they  encountered  on 
the  arrival  at  the  domestic  hearth  a  scene  which  did 
not  harmonize  with  the  fauy  land  of  reverie. 

The  crisis  arrived,  when,  after  months  of  unusual 
abstraction  and  irritability,  my  father  produced  a 
poem.  For  the  first  time,  my  grandfather  was  se- 
riously alarmed.  The  loss  of  one  of  his  argosies, 
uninsured,  could  not  have  filled  him  with  more 
blank  dismay.  His  idea  of  a  poet  was  formed^ 
from  one  of  the  prints  of  Hogarth  hanging  in  his 


AV 


/x 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  11 

room,  where  an  unfortunate  wight  in  a  giirret  \vaa 
inditing  an  ode  to  riches,  while  dunned  for  his  milk- 
Bcore.  Decisive  measures  were  required  to  eradicate 
this  evil,  and  to  prevent  future  disgrace — so,  as 
seems  the  custom  when  a  person  is  in  a  scrape,  it 
W'as  resolved  that  my  father  should  be  sent  abroad, 
where  a  new  scene  and  a  new  language  might  di- 
vert his  mind  from  the  ignominious  pursuit  wiiich 
so  fatally  attracted  him.  The  unhappy  poet  was 
consigned,  like  a  bale  of  goods,  to  my  grandfather's 
correspondent  at  Amsterdam,  who  had  instructions 
to  place  him  at  some  collegium  of  repute  in  that 
city.  Here  were  passed  some  years  not  without 
profit,  though  his  tutor  was  a  great  impostor,  very 
neglectful  of  his  pupils,  and  both  unable  and  dis- 
inclined to  guide  them  in  severe  studies.  This  pre- 
ceptor was  a  man  of  letters,  though  a  wn-etched 
writer,  with  a  good  library,  and  a  spirit  inflamed 
with  aU  the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
then  (1780-1)  about  to  bring  forth  and  bear  its  long 
matured  fruits.  The  intelligence  and  disposition  of 
my  father  attracted  his  attention,  and  rather  inter- 
ested him.  He  taught  his  charge  little,  for  he  was 
himself  generally  occupied  in  writing  bad  odes,  but 
he  gave  him  free  warren  in  his  library,  and  before 
hia  pupil  was  fifteen,  he  had  read  the  works  of 
Voltaire  and  had  dipped  into  Bayle.  Strange  that 
the  characteristics  of  a  writer  so  born  and  brought 
up,  should  have  been  so  essentially   English  ;    not 


"> 


12  UFE  AND    WRITINGS 

merely  from  his  mastery  over  our  language,  but 
from  his  keen  and  profound  sympathy  with  all  that 
concerned  the  literary  and  political  history  of  our 
country  at  its  most  important  epoch. 

When  he  was  eighteen,  he  returned  to  England 
a  disciple  of  Kousseau.  He  had  exercised  his  im- 
agination during  the  voyage  in  idealizing  the  inter- 
view with  his  mother,  which  was  to  be  conducted 
on  both  sides  with  sublime  pathos.  His  other  par- 
ent had  frequently  visited  him  during  his  absence. 
He  was  prepared  to  throw  himself  on  his  mother's 
bosom,  to  bedew  her  hand  with  his  tears,  and  to 
stop  her  own  with  his  lips ;  but,  when  he  entered, 
his  strange  appearance,  his  gaunt  figure,  his  excited 
manners,  his  long  hair,  and  his  unfashionable  cos- 
tume, only  filled  her  with  a  sentiment  of  tender 
aversion  ;  she  broke  into  derisive  laughter,  and  no- 
ticing his  intolerable  garments,  she  reluctantly  lent 
him  her  cheek.  Whereupon  Emile,  of  course,  went 
into  heroics,  wept,  sobbed,  and  finally  shut  up  in  his 
chamber,  composed  an  impassioned  epistle.  My 
grandfather,  to  soothe  him,  dwelt  on  the  united  so- 
licitude of  his  parents  for  his  welfare,  and  broke  to 
him  their  intention,  if  it  were  agreeable  to  hirn,  to 
place  him  in  the  establishment  of  a  great  merchant 
of  Bordeaux.  My  father  replied  that  he  had  writ- 
ten a  poem  of  considerable  length,  which  he  wished 
to  publish,  against  Commerce,  which  was  the  cor- 
ruptor  of  man.     In  eight-and-forty  hours  confusion 


OF   THE  AUTHOR.  J3 

again  reigned  in  this  household,  and  all  from  a 
want  of  psychological  perception  in  its  master  and 
mistress. 

My  father,  who  had  lost  the  timidity  of  his  child- 
hood, who,  by  nature,  was  very  impulsive,  and  indeed 
endowed  with  a  degree  of  volatility  which  is  only 
witnessed  in  the  south  of  France,  and  which  never 
deserted  him  to  his  last  hour,  was  no  longer  to  be 
controlled.  His  conduct  was  decisive.  He  inclosed 
his  poem  to  Dr.  Johnson,  with  an  impassioned  state- 
ment of  his  case,  complaining,  which  he  ever  did, 
that  he  had  never  found  a  counsellor  or  literary 
friend.  He  left  his  packet  himself  at  Bolt  Court, 
where  he  was  received  by  Mr.  Francis  Barber,  the 
doctor's  well-known  black  servant,  and  told  to  call 
again  in  a  week.  Be  sure  that  he  was  very  punc- 
tual ;  but  the  packet  was  returned  to  him  unopened, 
with  a  message  that  the  illustrious  doctor  was  too 
ill  to  read  anything.  The  unhappy  and  obscure 
aspirant,  who  received  this  disheartening  message, 
accepted  it,  in  his  utter  despondency,  as  a  mechani- 
cal excuse.  But,  alas  !  the  cause  was  too  true ;  and, 
a  few  weeks  after,  on  that  bed,  beside  which  the 
voice  of  Mr.  Burke  faltered,  and  the  tender  spirit  of 
Benett  Langton  was  ever  vigilant,  the  great  soul  of 
Johnson  quitted  earth. 

But  the  spirit  of  self-confidence,  the  resolution  to 
struggle  against  his  fate,  the  paramount  desire  to 
find  some  sympathizing  sage — some  guide,  philoso- 


14  LIFE   AND   WRITINGS 

pher,  and  friend — was  so  strong  and  rooted  in  my 
father,  that  I  observed,  a  few  weeks  ago,  in  a  mag- 
azine, an  original  letter,  written  by  him  about  this 
time  to  Dr.  Vicesimus  Knox,  full  of  high-flown  sen- 
timents, reading  indeed  like  a  romance  of  Scudery 
and  intreating  the  learned  critic  to  receive  him  in  his 
family,  and  give  him  the  advantage  of  his  wisdom, 
his  taste,  and  his  erudition. 

With  a  home  that  ought  to  have  been  happy,  sur- 
rounded with  more  than  comfort,  with  the  most 
good-natured  father  in  the  world,  and  an  agreeable 
man,  and  with  a  mother  whose  strong  intellect,  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  might  have  been  of  great 
importance  to  him,  my  father,  though  himself  of  a 
very  sweet  disposition,  was  most  unhappy.  His 
parents  looked  upon  him  as  moonstruck,  whUe  he 
himself,  whatever  his  aspirations,  was  conscious  that 
he  had  done  nothing  to  justify  the  eccentricity  of  his 
course,  or  the  violation  of  all  prudential  considera- 
tions in  which  he  daily  indulged.  In  these  perplexi- 
ties, the  usual  alternative  was  again  had  recourse  to 
— absence  ;  he  was  sent  abroad,  to  travel  in  Franco, 
which  the  peace  then  permitted,  visit  some  friends, 
see  Paris,  and  then  proceed  to  Bordeaux  if  he  felt 
inclined.  My  father  travelled  in  France  and  then 
proceeded  to  Paris,  Avhere  he  remained  till  the  eve 
of  great  events  in  that  capital.  This  was  a  visit 
recollected  with  satisfaction.  He  lived  with  learned 
men  and  moved  in  vast  libraries,  and  retm*ned  in  the 


OF  THE   AUTHOR.  15 

enrlier  part  of  1788,  with  some  little  knowledge  of 
life,  and  with  a  considerable  quantity  of  books. 

At  this  time  Peter  Pindar  flourished  in  all  the 
wantonness  of  literary  riot.  He  was  at  the  height 
of  his  flagrant  notoriety.  The  novelty  and  the  bold- 
ness of  his  style  carried  the  million  with  him.  The 
most  exalted  station  was  not  exempt  from  his  auda- 
cious criticism,  and  learned  institutions  trembled  at 
the  sallies  whose  ribaldry  often  cloked  taste,  intelli- 
gence, and  good  sense.  His  "  Odes  to  the  Acade- 
micians," which  first  secured  him  the  ear  of  the 
town,  w^ere  written  by  one  who  could  himself  guide 
the  pencil  with  skill  and  feeling,  and  who,  in  the 
form  of  a  mechanic's  son,  had  even  the  felicity  to 
discover  the  vigorous  genius  of  Opie.  The  mock- 
heroic  which  invaded  with  success  the  sacred  recesses 
of  the  palace,  and  which  was  fruitlessly  menaced  by 
Secretaries  of  State,  proved  a  reckless  intrepidity, 
which  is  apt  to  be  popular  with  "  the  general."  The 
powerful  and  the  learned  quailed  beneath  the  lash 
with  an  affected  contempt  which  scarcely  veiled  their 
tremor.  In  the  mean  time,  as  in  the  latter  days  of 
the  empire,  the  barbarian  ravaged  the  country,  while 
the  pale-faced  patricians  were  inactive  within  the 
walls.     No  one  offered  resistance. 

There  appeared  about  this  time  a  satire  "  On  the 
Abuse  of  Satire."  The  verses  were  polished  and 
pointed ;  a  happy  echo  of  that  style  of  Mr.  Pope 
which    still   lingered   in   the   spellbound   ear   of   the 


16  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

public.     Peculiarly  they  offered  a  contrast  to  the  irre^- 
ular  effusions  of  the  popular  assailant  whom  they  in 
turn  assailed,  for  the  object  of  their  indignant  invec- 
tive was  the  bard  of  the  "  Lousiad."     The  poem  was 
anonymous,  and  was  addressed  to  Dr.  Warton  in 
lines  of   even   classic   grace.      Its    publication  was 
appropriate.      There  are  moments  when  every  one 
IS  inchned  to  praise,  especially  when  the  praise  of  a 
new  pen  may  at  the  same  time  revenge  the  insults 
of  an  old  one. 

But  if  there  could  be  any  doubt  of  the  success  of 
this   new  hand,  it  was  quicldy  removed  by  the  con- 
duct  of  Peter  Pindar  himself.     As  is  not  unusual 
with  persons  of  his  habits,  Wolcot  was  extremely 
sensitive,  and,  brandishing  a  tomahawk,  always  him- 
self  shrank  from  a  scratch.     This  was  shown  some 
years  afterwards   by  his  violent  assault   on  Ali-   Gif- 
ford,  with  a  bludgeon,  in  a  bookseller's  shop,  because 
The  author  of  the  "  Baviad  and  Afeviad  "   had  pre- 
sumed  to  castigate  the  great  lampooner  of  the  age 
In  the  present  instance,  the  furious  Wolcot  leapt  to' 
the  rash  conclusion,  that  the  author  of  the  satire  was 
no  less  a  personage  than  Mr.  Hayley,  and  he  assailed 
the  elegant   author  of  the  "Triumphs   of  Temper" 
in  a  virulent  pasquinade.     This  ill-considered  n^ove- 
ment  of  his  adversary  of  course  achieved  the  com- 
plete  success  of  the  anonymous  writer. 

My  father,  who  came  up  to  town  to  read  the  news- 
papers  at  the  St.  James'  Coffee-house,  found  their 


OF   THi:   AUTHOR.  I7 

columns  filled  with  extracts  from  the  fortunate  effa- 
sion  of  the  hour,  conjectures  as  to  its  writer,  and 
much  gossip  respecting  Wolcot  and  Hayley.  He 
returned  to  Enfield  laden  with  the  journals,  and, 
presenting  them  to  his  parents,  broke  to  them  the 
intelligence,  that  at  length  he  was  not  only  an 
author,  but  a  successful  one. 

He  was  indebted  to  this  slight  effort  for  something 
almost  as  agreeable  as  the  public  recognition  of  his 
ability,  and  that  was  the  acquaintance,  and  almost 
immediately  the  warm  personal  friendship,  of  Mr. 
Pye.  Mi:.  Pye  was  the  head  of  an  ancient  English 
family  that  figured  in  the  Parliaments  and  struggles 
of  the  Stuarts ;  he  was  member  for  the  County  of 
Berkshire,  where  his  ancestral  seat  of  Faringdon  was 
situate,  and  at  a  later  period  (1790)  became  Poet 
Laureate.  In  those  days,  when  literary  clubs  did 
not  exist,  and  when  even  political  ones  were  ex- 
tremely limited  and  exclusive  in  their  character,  the 
booksellers'  shops  were  social  rendezvous.  Debrett's 
was  the  chief  haunt  of  the  Whigs  ;  Hatchard's,  I 
believe,  of  the  Tories.  It  was  at  the  latter  house 
that  my  father  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Pye, 
then  publishing  his  translation  of  Aristotle's  Poetics, 
and  so  strong  was  party  feeling  at  that  period,  that 
one  day,  walldng  together  down  Piccadilly,  Mr.  Pye, 
stopping  at  the  door  of  Debrett,  requested  his  com- 
panion to  go  in  and  purchase  a  particular  pamph- 
let for  him,  adding  that  if  he   had  the  audacity  to 


18  LIFE  AKD  WRITINGS 

enter,  more  than  one  person  would  tread  upon  hia 
toes. 

My  father  at  last  had  a  friend.  Mr.  Pye,  though 
double  his  age,  was  still  a  young  man,  and  the  liter- 
ary sympathy  between  them  was  complete.  Unfor- 
tunately, the  member  for  Berkshire  was  a  man  rather 
of  an  elegant  turn  of  mind,  than  one  of  that  energy 
and  vigour  which  a  youth  required  for  a  companion 
at  that  moment.  Their  tastes  and  pursuits  were 
perhaps  a  little  too  similar.  They  addressed  poetical 
epistles  to  each  other,  and  were,  reciprocally,  too 
gentle  critics.  But  Mr.  Pye  was  a  mo&t  amiable 
and  accomplished  man,  a  fine  classical  scholar,  and 
a  master  of  correct  versification.  He  paid  a  visit  to 
Enfield,  and  by  his  influence  hastened  a  conclusion 
at  which  my  grandfather  was  just  arriving,  to  wit, 
that  he  would  no  longer  persist  in  the  fruitless  efTort 
of  converting  a  poet  into  a  merchant,  and  that,  con- 
tent with  the  independence  he  had  realized,  he  would 
abandon  his  dreams  of  founding  a  dynasty  of  finan- 
ciers. From  this  moment  all  disquietude  ceased 
beneath  this  always  well-meaning,  though  often  per- 
plexed, roof,  while  my  father,  enabled  amply  to  grat- 
ify his  darling  passion  of  book-collecting,  passed  his 
days  in  tranquil  study,  and  in  the  society  of  conge- 
nial spirits. 

His  new  friend  introduced  him  almost  immediately 
to  Mr.  James  Pettit  Andrews,  a  Berkshire  gentleman 
of  literary  pursuits,  and  whose  hospitable  table  at 


OF   TITK   AUTHOR.  19 

Brompton  was  the  resort  of  the  best  literary  society 
of  the  day.     Here  my  father  was   a  frequent  guest, 
and   walking   home    one   night   together   from   this 
house,  where  they  had  both  dined,  he   made  the   ac- 
quaintance of   a  young  poet,  which    soon  ripened 
into    intimacy,   and  which    throughout    sixty  years, 
notwithstanding  many  changes  of  life,  never  died 
away.     This  youthful  poet  had  already  gained  lau- 
rels, though  he  was  only  three  or  four  years  older 
than   my  father,  but  I  am  not  at  this  moment    quite 
aware  whether  his  brow  was   yet  encircled  with  the 
amaranthine  wreath  of  the  "  Pleasures  of  Memory." 
Some  years  after  this,  great  vicissitudes  unhappily 
occurred  in  the  family  of  Mr.  Pye.     He  was  obliged 
to   retire  from   Parliament,  and   to    sell   his  family 
estate  of  Faringdon.     His  Majesty  had  already,  on 
the  death  of  Thomas  Warton,  nominated  him  Poet 
Laureate,  and  after  his  retirement  from  Parliament, 
the  government  which  he  had  supported,  appointed 
him   a   Commissioner  of  Police.       It  was  in   these 
days,  that  his  friend,  Mr.  Penn,   of  Stoke  Park,  in 
Buckinghamshire,    presented    him   with    a    cottage 
worthy  of  a  poet  on  his  beautiful  estate ;  and  it  was 
thus  my  father  became  acquainted  with  the  amiable 
descendant  of  the  most  successful  of  colonizers,  and 
with  that  classic  domain  which  the  genius  of  Gray, 
as  it  were,  now  haunts,  and  has  for  ever  hallowed, 
and  from  which   he  beheld  with  fond  and  musing 
eye,  those 

Distant  spires  and  antique  towers. 


20  LIFE   AND    WRITIXGo 

that  no  one  can  now  look  upon  without  remember- 
ing  him.     It  was  amid  these  rambles  in  Stoke  Park, 
amid  the  scenes  of  Gray's  genius,  the  elegiac  church- 
yard,  and  the    picturesque   fragments  of  the  Long 
Story,  talking  over  the  deeds  of  the  «  Great  Rebel^ 
lion"  with  the  descendants  of  Cavaliers  and  Parlla- 
ment-men,  that  my  father  first  imbibed  that  feeling 
for  the  county  of  Buckingham,  which  induced  him 
occasionally  to  be  a  dweUer  in  its  Umits,  and  ulti- 
mately,  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  after\vards, 
to  establish  his  household  gods  in  its  heart.      And 
here,  perhaps,  I  may  be  permitted  to  mention  a  cir- 
cumstance, which  is  indeed  trifling,   and  yet,  as  a 
coincidence,  not,  I  think,  without  interest.     Mr.  Pye 
was  the  gi-eat-grandson  of  Sk  Robert  Pye,  of  Bra- 
denham,  who  married  Anne,  the  eldest  daughter  of 
Mr.  Hampden.     How  little  could  my  father  dream, 
sixty  years  ago.  that  he  would  pass  the  last  quarter 
of  his  life  in  the  mansion-house  of  Bradenham  ;  that 
his  name  would  become  intimately  connected  with 
the  county  of  Buckingham;    and  that  his  own  re- 
mains  would  be  inteiTed  in  the  vault  of  the  chancd 
of  Bradenham    Church,    among  the  coffins   of  the 
descendants  of  the  Hampdens  and  the  Pyes.      All 
which  should  teach  us  that,  whatever  may  be  our 
natural  bent,  there  is   a  power  in  the  disposal  of 
events  greater  than  human  will. 

It  was  about  two  years  after  his  first  acquaintance 
with  Mr.  Pye,  that  my  father,  being  then  in  his  t^^^enty- 


OF  THE   AUTHOR.  21 

fifth  year,  influenced  by  the  ch-cle  in  which  he  tlicn 
.lived,  gave  an  anonymous  volume  to  the  press,  the 
fate  of  which  he  could  little  have  foreseen.  The 
taste  for  literary  history  was  then  of  recent  date  in 
England.  It  was  developed  by  Dr.  Johnson  and  the 
Wartons,  who  were  the  true  founders  of  that  elegant 
literature  in  which  France  had  so  richly  preceded  us. 
The  fashion  for  literary  anecdote  prevailed  at  the 
end  of  the  last  century.  Mr.  Pettit  Andrews,  assisted 
by  Ml-.  Pye  and  Captain  Grose,  and  shortly  after- 
wards, his  friend,  IVIr.  Seward,  in  his  "Anecdotes  of 
Distinguished  Persons,"  had  both  of  them  produced 
ingenious  works,  which  had  experienced  public  fa- 
vour. But  these  volumes  were  rather  entertaining 
than  substantial,  and  their  interest  in  many  instances 
was  necessarily  fleeting ;  all  which  made  Mr.  Rogers 
observe,  that  the  world  was  far  gone  in  its  anec- 
dotage. 

While  Mr.  Andrews  and  his  friend  were  hunting 
for  personal  details  in  the  recollections  of  their  con- 
temporaries, my  father  maintained  one  day,  that  the 
most  interesting  of  miscellanies  might  be  drawn  up 
by  a  well-read  man  from  the  library  in  which  he 
lived.  It  was  objected,  on  the  other  hand,  that  such 
a  work  would  be  a  mere  compilation,  and  could  not 
succeed  with  its  dead  matter  in  interesting  the  public. 
To  test  the  truth  of  this  assertion,  my  father  occupied 
himself  in  the  preparation  of  an  octavo  volume,  the 
principal  materials  of  which  were  found  in  the  di- 


22  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

m-sified  colledions  of  the  French  Ana;  but  he  en- 
riched  his  subjects  with  as  much  of  our  own 
literature  as  his  reading  afforded,  and  he  conveyed 
the  result  in  that  lively  and  entertaining  style  which 
he  from  the  first  commanded.  This  collection  of 
"Anecdotes,  Characters,  Sketches,  and  Observations; 
Literary,  Critical,  and  Historical,"  as  the  title-page 
of  the  first  edition  figures,  he  invested  with  the  happy 
baptism  of  "  Curiosities  of  Literature." 

He  sought  by  this  publication  neither  reputation 
nor   a   coarser   reward,   for   he   published    his  work 
anonymously,  and  avowedly  as  a  compilation  ;  and 
he  not  only  published  the  work  at  his  own  expense, 
but  in  his  heedlessness  made  a  present  of  the  copy- 
right to  the    bookseller,  which    three   or  four  years 
afterwards,  he  was  fortunate  enough  to  purchase  at 
a   public    sale.      The   volume   was    an   experiment 
whether  a  taste  for  literature  could  not  be  infused 
into  the  multitude.     Its  success  was  so  decided,  that 
its  projector  was  tempted  to  add  a  second  volume 
two  years  afterwards,  with  a  slight  attempt  at  more 
original  research  ;  I  observe  that  there  was  a  second 
edition   of    both   volumes   in    1794.       For    twenty 
years    the   brother  volumes   remained  favourites  of 
The    public;    when    after    that    long   interval    their 
writer,  taking  advantage  of  a  popular  title,  poured 
forth   all   the   riches    of    his    matured   intellect,   his 
refined  taste,  and  accumulated  knowledge  into  their 
pages,  and  produced  what  may  be  fairly  described 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  23 

as  the  most  celebrated  Miscellany  of  Modern  Litera- 
ture. 

The  moment  that  the  name  of  the  youthful  au- 
thor of  the  "Abuse  of  Satire"  had  ti-anspired,  Peter 
Pindar,  faithful  to  the  instinct  of  his  nature,  wrote, 
a  letter  of  congi-atulation  and  compliment  to  his 
assailant,  and  desired  to  make  his  acquaintance. 
The  invitation  was  responded  to,  and  until  the 
death  of  Wolcot,  they  were  intimate.  My  father 
always  described  Wolcot  as  a  warm-hearted  man ; 
coarse  in  his  manners,  and  rather  rough,  but  eager 
to  serve  those  whom  he  liked,  of  which,  indeed,  I 
might  appropriately  mention  an  instance. 

It  so  happened,  that  about  the  year  1795,  when 
he  was  in  his  29th  year,  there  came  over  my  father 
that  mysterious  illness  to  which  the  youth  of  men 
of  sensibility,  and  especially  literary  men,  is  fre- 
quently subject — a  failing  of  nervous  energy,  occa- 
sioned by  study  and  too  sedentary  habits,  early 
and  habitual  reverie,  restless  and  indefinite  purpose. 
The  symptoms,  physical  and  m.oral,  are  most  dis- 
tressing:  lassitude  and  despondency.  And  it  usu- 
ally happens,  as  in  the  present  instance,  th^t  „-the 
cause  of  suffering  is  not  recognized ;  and  that  med- 
ical men,  misled  by  the  superficial  symptoms,  and 
not  seeking  to  acquaint  themselves  with  the  psy- 
chology of  their  patients,  arrive  at  "Erroneous,  often 
fatal,  conclusions.  In  this  case,  the  most  eminent 
of  the   faculty   gave  it  as   their   opinion,  that   the 


^'^  LIFE  AND   WRITINGS 

disease  was  consumption.  Dr.  Turton,  if  I  ,ecoUect 
"ght,  was  then  the  most  considered  physician  of  the 
day.  An  immediate  visit  to  a  warmer  climate  was 
"s  speclic;  and  as  the  Continent  was  then  dis- 
turbed  and  foreign  residence  ont  of  the  question, 
:  uTT?  ''<"=°'""^"ded  that  his  patient  shouJd 
estab  ,sh  himself  without  delay  in  Devonshire. 

When  my  father  communicated  this  impending 
change  >n  his  life  to  Wolcot,  the  modern  Skelto^ 
shoolc  h,s  head.     He  did  not  believe  thaU,is  friend 
was  rn  a  consumption,  but  being  a  Devf^hire  man, 
and  lovmg  very  much  his  native  p^nce,  he  highly 
approved  of  the  remedy.     He  gave  my  father  several 
letters  of  mtroduetion  to  persons  of  consideration  at 
Kxeter;  among  others,  one  whom  he  justly  described 
as  a  poet  and  a  physician,  and  the  best  of  men,  the 
late  Dr.  Hugh  Downmap.      Provincial  cities   very 
often  enjoy  a  transient  term  of  intellectual  distinc- 
Hon.      An  eminent  man  often  collects  around  him 
congenial  spirits,  and  the  power  of  association  some- 
brnes  produces  distant  effects  which  even  an  indi- 
vidual, however  gifted,  could  scarcely  have  antici- 
pated.     A  combination  of  circumstances  had  made 
at  tins  time  Exeter  a  literary  metropolis.    A  number 
of  distmgmshed  men  flourished  there  at  the  same 
moment:  some  of  their  names  are  even  now  remem- 
bered.     Jackson  of  Exeter  still  survives  as  a  native 
composer  of  original  genius.     He  was  also  an  au- 
thor  of  high   ajsthetical    speculation.      The   heroic 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  25 

poems  of  Hole  are  forgotten,  but  his  essay  on  the 
Arabian  Nights  is  still  a  cherished  volume  of  elegant 
and  learned  criticism.  Hayter  was  the  classic  anti- 
quary who  first  discovered  the  art  of  unrolling  the 
MSS.  of  Herculaneum.  There  were  many  others, 
noisier  and  more  bustling,  who  are  now  forgotten, 
though  they  in  some  degree  influenced  the  literary 
opinion  of  their  time.  It  was  said,  and  I  believe 
truly,  that  the  two  principal,  if  not  sole,  organs  of 
periodical  criticism  at  that  time,  I  think  the  "  Crit- 
ical ■  Review "  and  the  "  Monthly  Review,"  were 
principally  supported  by  Exeter  contributions.  No 
doubt  this  circumstance  may  account  for  a  great 
deal  of  mutual  praise  and  sympathetic  opinion  on 
literary  subjects,  which,  by  a  convenient  arrange- 
ment, appeared  in  the  pages  of  publications  other- 
wise professing  contrary  opinions  on  all  others. 
Exeter  had  then  even  a  learned  society  which  pub- 
lished its  Transactions. 

With  such  companions,  by  whom  he  was  received 
with  a  kindness  and  hospitality  which  to  the  last  he 
often  dwelt  on,  it  may  easily  be  supposed  that  the 
banishment  of  my  father  from  the  delights  of  literary 
London  was  not  as  productive  a  source  of  gloom  as 
the  exile  of  Ovid  to  the  savage  Pontus,  even  if  it 
had  not  been  his  happy  fortune  to  have  been  received 
on  terms  of  intimate  friendship,  by  the  accomplished 
family  of  Mr.  Baring,  who  was  then  member  for 
Exeter,  and  beneath  whose  roof  he  passed  a  great 


2G  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

portion  of  the  period  of  nearly  three  years,  during 
wiiich  he  remained  in  Devonshire. 

The  iJhiess  of  my  father  was  relieved,  but  not 
removed,   by  this   change   of   life.      Dr.  Downman 
was  his  physician,  whose  only  remedies  were  port 
wine,    horse-exercise,   rowing   on    the   neighbouring 
river,  and  the  distraction  of  agreeable  society.     This 
wise  physician  recognized  the  temperament  of  his 
patient,  and  perceived  that  his  physical  derangement 
was  an  effect  instead  of  a  cause.     My  father  instead 
of  being  in  a  consumption,  was  endowed  with  a 
frame  of   almost  superhuman  strength,  and  which 
was  destined  for  half  a  century  of  continuous  labour 
and  sedentary  life.     The  vital  principle  in  him,  in- 
deed, was  so  strong  that  when  he  left  us  at  eighty- 
two,  it  was  only  as  the  victim  of  a  violent  epidemic, 
against  whose  virulence  he  sti'uggled  with  so  much 
power,  that  it  was  clear,  but  for  this  casualty,  he 
might  have  been  spared  to  this  world  even  for  sev- 
eral years. 

I  should  think  that  this  illness  of  his  youth,  and 
which,  though  of  a  fitful  character,  was  of  many 
years  dm-ation,  arose  from  his  inability  to  direct 
to  a  satisfactory  end  the  intellectual  power  which 
he  was  conscious  of  possessing.  He  would  men- 
tion the  ten  years  of  his  life,  from  twenty-five  to 
thirty-five  years  of  age,  as  a  period  very  deficient  in 
self-contentedness.  The  fact  is,  with  a  poetic  tem- 
perament,  he  had  been   born  in   an  age  when  the 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  27 

poetic  faith  of  which  he  was  a  votary  had  fallen 
into  decrepitude,  and  had  become  only  a  form  with 
the  public,  not  yet  gifted  with  sufficient  fervour  to 
discover  a  new  creed.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Pope  and 
Boileau,  yet  both  from  his  native  impulse  and  from 
the  glowing  influence  of  Rousseau,  he  felt  the  ne- 
cessity and  desire  of  infusing  into  the  verse  of  the 
day  more  passion  than  might  resound  from  the  frigid 
lyre  of  Mr.  Hayley.  My  father  had  fancy,  sensibil- 
ity, and  an  exquisite  taste,  but  he  had  not  that  rare 
creative  power,  which  the  blended  and  simultaneous 
influence  of  the  individual  organization  and  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  reciprocally  acting  upon  each 
other,  can  alone,  perhaps,  perfectly  develop ;  the 
absence  of  which,  at  periods  of  transition,  is  so 
universally  recognized  and  deplored,  and  yet  which 
always,  when  it  does  arrive,  captivates  us,  as  it 
were,  by  sm^prise.  How  much  thei-e  was  of  fresh- 
ness, and  .fancy,  and  natural  pathos  in  his  mind, 
may  be  discerned  in  his  Persian  romance  of  "  The 
Loves  of  Mejnoon  and  Leila."  We  who  have  been 
accustomed  to  the  great  poets  of  the  nineteenth 
century  seeking  their  best  inspiration  in  the  climate 
and  manners  of  the  East;  who  are  familiar  with 
the  land  of  the  Sun  from  the  isles  of  Ionia  to  the 
vales  of  Cashmere ;  can  scarcely  appreciate  the  lit- 
erary originality  of  a  writer  who,  fifty  years  ago, 
dared  to  devise  a  real  Eastern  story,  and  seeking 
inspiration  in  the  pages  of  Oriental  literature,  com- 


28  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

pose   it   with    reference  to   the  Eastern  mind,  and 
customs,    and    landscape.      One   must    have    been 
familiar  with  the  Almoran  and  Hamets,  the  visions 
of  Mirza  and  the  kings  of  Ethiopia,  and  the  other 
dull    and    monsti-ous    masquerades    of   Orientalism 
then  prevalent,  to  estimate  such  an  enterprise,  in 
which,  however,  one   should    not  forget  the  author 
had  the  advantage  of  the  guiding  friendship  of  that 
distinguished  Orientalist,  Sir  William  Ouseley.     The 
reception  of  this  work  by  the  public,  and  of  other 
works   of  fiction   which   its   author   gave   to  them 
anonymously,   was   in    every   respect    encouraging, 
and  theii-  success  may  impartially  be  registered  as 
fairly  proportionate  to  their  merits  ;   but  it  was  not 
a  success,  or  a  proof  of  power,  which,  in  my  father's 
opinion,   compensated   for   that   life   of  literary  re- 
search   and    study   which    their     composition    dis- 
turbed  and  enfeebled.     It  was  at  the  ripe    age   of 
five-and-thirty   that    he    renounced    his   dreams  of 
being  an    author,  and   resolved   to  devote   himself 
for  the  rest  of  his  life  to  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge. 

When  my  father,  many  years  afterwards,  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  the  great 
poet,  saluted  him  by  reciting  a  poem  of  half-a-dozen 
stanzas  which  my  father  had  written  in  his  early 
youth.  Not  altogether  without  agitation,  surprise 
was  expressed  that  these  lines  should  have  been 
known,  still  more  that  they  should   have  been  re- 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  29 

inembered.  "  Ah!"  said  Sir  Walter,  "  if  the  writer 
of  these  lines  had  gone  on,  he  would  have  been  an 
English  poet."* 

It  is  possible ;  it  is  even  probable  that,  if  my 
father  had  devoted  himself  to  the  art,  he  might  have 
become  the  author  of  some  elegant  and  popular 
didactic  poem,  on  some  ordinary  subject,  which  his 
fancy  would  have  adorned  with  grace  and  his  sensi- 
bility invested  with  sentiment;  some  small  volume 
which  might  have  reposed  with  a  classic  title  upon 
our  library  shelves,  and  served  as  a  prize  volume  at 
Ladies'  Schools.  This  celebrity  was  not  reserved 
for  him ;  instead  of  this  he  was  destined  to  give  to 
his  country  a  series  of  works  illustrative  of  its  liter- 
ary and  political  history,  full  of  new  information 
and  new  views,  which  time  and  opinion  have  ratified 
as  just.  But  the  poetical  temperament  was  not 
thrown  away  upon  him,  it  never  is  on  any  one;  it 
was  this  great  gift  which  prevented  his  being  a  mere 
literary  antiquary ;  it  was  this  which  animated  his 
page  with  picture  and  his  naiTative  with  interesting 
vivacity;  above  all,  it  was  this  temperament,  which 
invested  him  with  that  sympathy  with  his  subject, 
which  made  him  the  most  delightful  biographer  in 
our  language.     In  a  word,  it  was  because  he  was  a 

*  Sir  Walter  was  sincere,  for  he  inserted  the  poem  in  tlie  "English 
Minstrelsy."  It  may  now  be  found  in  these  volumes,  Vol.  I.  p.  313,  where. 
In  consequence  of  the  recollection  of  Sir  Walter,  and  as  illustrative  of 
manners  now  obsolete,  it  was  subsequently  inserted. 


30  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

poet,  that  he  was  a  popular  writer,  and  made  beUes- 
lettres  charming  to  the  multitude. 

It  was  during  the  ten  years  that  now  occurred, 
that  he  mainly  acquired   that   store   of  facts  which 
were  the  foundation  of  his  future  specuJations.     His 
pen  was  never  idle,  but  it  was  to  note  and  to  register, 
not   to   compose.      His  researches   were   proserated 
every  morning  among  the  MSS.  of  the  British  Mu- 
seum,  while   his  own    ample   collections   permitted 
him  to  pursue  his  investigation  in  his  own  library 
into  the  night.     The  materials  which  he  accumulated 
during  this  period  are  only  partially  exhausted.     At 
the  end  of  ten  years,  diuing  which,  with  the  exception 
of  one  anonymous  work,  he  never  indulged  in  com- 
position, the  irresistible  desire  of  communicating  his 
conclusions  to  the  world  came  over  him,  and  after 
all  his  almost  childish  aspbations,  his  youth  of  rev- 
erie  and  hesitating  and  imperfect  effort,   he  arrived 
at  the  mature  age  of  forty-five  before  his  career  as  a 
great  author,  influencing  opinion,  really  commenced. 
The  next  ten  years  passed  entirely  in  production ; 
from    1812   to    1822    the   press   abounded  with  his 
works.     His  »  Calamities  of  Authors,"  his  "  Memoirs 
of  Literary  Controversy,"  in  the  manner  of  Bayle ; 
his    »  Essay  on  the   Literary   Character,"    the   most 
perfect  of  his  compositions;  were  aU  chapters  in  that 
History  of  English  Literature  which  he  then  com- 
menced to  meditate,  and  which  it  was  fated  should 
never  be  completed. 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  31 

Jt  was  during  this  period  also  that  be  jiubUslied 
his  "  Inquiry  into  the  Literary  and  Political  Charac- 
ter of  James  the  First,"  in  which  he  first  opened 
those  views  respecting  the  times  and  the  conduct  of 
the  Stuarts,  which  were  opposed  to  the  long  prevalent 
opinions  of  this  country,  but  which  with  him  were 
at  least  the  result  of  unprejudiced  research,  and  their 
promulgation,  as  he  himself  expressed  it,  "  an  affair 
of  literary  conscience."  * 

But  what  retarded  his  project  of  a  History  of  our 
Literature  at  this  time  was  the  almost  embarrassing 
success  of  his  juvenile  production,  "  The  Curiosities 
of  Literature."  These  two  volumes  had  already 
reached  five  editions,  and  their  author  found  himself. 
by  the  public  demand,  again  called  upon  to  sanction 
their  reappearance.  Recognizing  in  this  circum- 
stance some  proof  of  their  utility,  he  resolved  to 
make  the  work  more  worthy  of  the  favour  which  it 
enjoyed,  and  more  calculated  to  produce  the  benefit 
which  he  desired.  Without  attempting  materially 
to  alter  the  character  of  the  first  two  volumes,  he 

*  "The  present  inquiry  originates  in  an  affair  of  literary  conscience. 
Many  years  ago  I  set  off  with  the  popuhn-  notions  of  the  character  of 
James  the  First;  but  in  the  course  of  study,  and  with  a  more  enlarged 
comprehension  of  the  age,  I  was  frequently  struck  by  the  contrast 
between  his  real  and  his  apparent  character  ***** 
*  *  *  *  It  would  be  a  cowardly  silence  to  shrink  from 
encountering  all  that  popular  prejudice  and  party  feeling  may  oppose; 
this  would  be  incompatible  with  that  constant  search  after  truth,  which 
at  least  may  be  expected  from  the  retired  student." — Preface  to  the 
Inquiry 


^2  LIFE   AND    WRITIXGS 

revised  and  enriched  them,  while  at  the  same  time 
he  added  a  third  volume  of  a  vein  far  more  critical, 
and  conveying  the  results  of  much  original  research. 
The  success  of  this  publication  was  so  great,  that  its 
author,  after  much   hesitation,  resolved,  as    he  was 
wont  to  say,  to  take  advantage  of  a  popular  title, 
and  pour  forth  the  treasures  of  his  mind  in  three 
additional  volumes,  which,  unlike  continuations  in 
general,  were  at  once  greeted  with  the  highest  de- 
gree of  popular  delight  and  esteem.     And,  indeed, 
whether  we  consider  the  choice  variety  of  the  sub- 
jects,   the    critical    and    philosophical    speculation 
which    pervades    them,    the    amount   of    new   and 
interesting    information    brought   to    bear,    and    the 
animated  style  in  which  aU  is  conveyed,  it  is  diffi- 
cult  to  conceive   miscellaneous  literature  in  a  garb 
more  stimulating  and  attractive.     These  six  volumes' 
after  many  editions,  are  now  condensed  into  the  form 
at  present  given   to  the    public,  and   in  which   the 
development  of  their  writer's  mind  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  may  be  completely  traced. 

Although  my  father  had  on  the  whole  little  cause 
to  complain  of  unfak  criticism,  especially  considering 
how  isolated  he  always  remained,  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  a  success  so  eminent  should  have 
been  exempt  in  so  long  a  course  from  some  captious 
comment.  It  has  been  alleged  of  late  years  by  some 
critics,  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  exaggerating  the 
importance  of  his  researches;  that  he  was  too  fond 


OF   T1IJ-:   AUTHOR.  33 

of  styling  every  accession  to  our  knowledge,  how- 
ever slight,  a  discovery ;  that  there  were  some  inac- 
curacies in  his  early  volumes,  (not  very  wonderful  in 
so  multifarious  a  work,)  and  that  the  foundation  of 
his  "secret  history"  was  often  only  a  single  letter,  or 
a  passage  in  a  solitary  diary. 

The  som-ces  of  secret  history  at  the  present  day 
are  so  rich  and  various ;  there  is  such  an  eagerness 
among  their  possessors  to  publish  family  papers, 
even  sometimes  in  shapes,  and  at  dates  so  recent, 
as  scarcely  to  justify  their  appearance;  that  modern 
critics,  in  their  embarrassment  of  manuscript  wealth, 
are  apt  to  view  with  too  depreciating  an  eye,  the 
more  limited  resources  of  men  of  letters  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  century.  Not  five-and-twenty 
years  ago,  when  preparing  his  work  on  King  Charles 
the  First,  the  application  of  my  father  to  make 
some  researches  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  was 
refused  by  the  Secretary  of  State  of  the  day.  Now, 
foreign  potentates  and  ministers  of  State,  and  pub- 
lic corporations,  and  the  heads  of  great  houses,  feel 
honoured  by  such  appeals,  and  respond  to  them 
with  cordiality.  It  is  not  only  the  State  Paper 
Office  of  England,  but  the  Archives  of  France,  that 
are  open  to  the  historical  investigator.  But  what 
has  produced  this  general  and  expanding  taste  for 
literary  research  in  the  world,  and  especially  in 
England  ?  The  labours  of  our  elder  authors,  whose 
taste   and    acuteness   taught   us   the   value    of    the 


34  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

materials   which    we   in   our    ignorance    neglected. 
When  my  father  first  frequented  the  reading-room 
of  the  British  Museum  at  the  end  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, his  companions  never  numbered  half  a  dozen ; 
among  them,  if  I  remember  rightly,  were  Mr.  Pin- 
kerton   and  Mr.  Douce.     Now  these  daily   pilgrims 
of  research  may  be  counted  by  as  many  hundreds. 
Few   writers    have    more    contributed   to  form  and 
diffuse  this   delightful   and   profitable   taste   for  re- 
search, than  the  author  of  the  "  Curiosities  of  Lit- 
erature;" few   writers   have   been    more    successful 
m  inducing  us  to  pause  before  we  accepted  with- 
out  a   scrujile    the    traditionary   opinion    that    has 
distorted   a  fact  or  calumniated  a  character  ;    and 
independently  of  every  other  claim  which  he  pos- 
sesses   to    public    respect,    his    literary    discoveries, 
viewed    in   relation    to    the    age    and    the    means, 
were   considerable.     But   he    had   other   claims:    a 
vital  spirit  in  his  page,  kindred  with  the  souls  of 
a  Bayle  and   a  Montaigne.     His  innumerable  imi- 
tators and  their  inevitable  failure  for  half  a  century 
alone  prove  this,  and  might  have  made  them  suspect 
that  there  were  some  ingredients  in  the  spell  besides 
the  accumulation  of  facts  and  a  happy  title.     Many 
of    thek    publications,    perpetually    appearing    and 
constantly   forgotten,    were    drawn    up    by    persons 
of  considerable  acquirements,  and  were  ludicrously 
mimetic  of  their  prototype,  even  as  to  the  size  of 
the  volume  and  the  form  of  the  page.     What  has 


OF  THE   AUllIOK.  35 

become  of  these  "  Varieties  of  Literature,"  and 
"Delights  of  Literatui-e,"  and  "  Delicacies  of  Lit- 
erature," and  "  Relics  of  Literature," — and  the  other 
Protean  forms  of  uninspired  compilation  ?  Dead 
as  they  deserve  to  be :  while  the  work,  the  idea  of 
which  occurred  to  its  writer  in  his  early  youth,  and 
which  he  lived  virtually  to  execute  in  all  the  ripe- 
ness of  his  studious  manhood,  remains  as  fresh  and 
popular  as  ever, — the  Literary  Miscellany  of  the 
English   People. 

I  have  ventured  to  enter  into  some  details  as  to 
the  earlier  and  obscurer  years  of  my  father's  life, 
because  I  thought  that  they  threw  light  upon  hu- 
man character,  and  that  without  them,  indeed,  a 
just  appreciation  of  his  career  could  hardly  be 
formed.  I  am  mistaken,  if  we  do  not  recognize 
in  his  instance  two  very  interesting  qualities  of 
life;  predisposition  and  self-formation.  There  was 
a  third,  which  I  think  is  to  be  honoured,  and  that 
was  his  sympathy  with  his  order.  No  one  has 
written  so  much  about  authors,  and  so  well.  In- 
deed, before  his  time  the  Literary  Character  had 
never  been  fairly  placed  before  the  world.  He 
comprehended  its  idiosyncrasy:  all  its  strength  and 
all  its  weakness.  He  could  soften,  because  he  could 
explain,  its  infirmities ;  in  the  analysis  and  record 
of  its  power,  he  vindicated  the  right  position  of 
authors  in  the  social  scale.  They  stand  between 
the  governors  and  the  governed,  he  impresses  on  us 


36  LIFE   AND   WRITINGS 

in  the  closing  pages  of  his  greatest  work.*  Though 
he  shared  none  of  the  calamities,  and  scarcely  any 
of  the  controversies,  of  literature,  no  one  has  sym- 
pathized so  intimately  with  the  sorrows,  or  so  zeal- 
ously and  impartially  registered  the  instructive  dis- 
putes, of  literary  men.  He  loved  to  celebrate  the 
exploits  of  great  writers,  and  to  show  that,  in  ihese 
ages,  the  pen  is  a  weapon  as  puissant  as  the  sword. 
He  was  also  the  fii'st  writer  who  vindicated  the 
position  of  the  great  artist  in  the  history  of  genius. 
His  pages  are  studded  with  pregnant  instances  and 
graceful  details,  borrowed  from  the  life  of  Art  and 
its  votaries,  and  which  his  intimate  and  curious 
acquaintance  with  Italian  letters  readily  and  happily 
supplied.  Above  all  writers,  he  has  maintained 
the  greatness  of  intellect,  and  the  immortality  of 
thought. 

He  was  himself  a  complete  literary  character, 
a  man  who  really  passed  his  life  in  his  library. 
Even  marriage  produced  no  change  in  these  habits ; 
he  rose  to  enter  the  chamber  where  he  lived  alone 
with  his  books,  and  at  night  his  lamp  was  ever  lit 
within  the  same  walls.  Nothing,  indeed,  was  more 
remarkable  than  the  isolation  of  this  prolonged  ex- 
istence ;  and  it  could  only  be  accounted  for  by  the 
united  influence  of  three  causes :  his  birth,  which 
brought   him  no  relations  or  family   acquaintance, 

*  "  Essay  on  the  Literary  Character,"  Vol.  II.  chap.  xxv. 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  37 

the  bent  of  his  disposition,  and  tho  circumstance 
of  his  inheriting  an  independent  fortune,  which 
rendered  unnecessary  those  exertions,  that  would 
have  broken  up  his  self-reliance.  He  disliked  busi- 
ness, and  he  never  required  relaxation  ;  he  was 
absorbed  in  his  pursuits.  In  London  his  only 
amusement  was  to  ramble  among  booksellers;  if 
he  entered  a  club,  it  was  only  to  go  into  the  library. 
In  the  country,  he  scarcely  ever  left  his  room,  but 
to  saunter  in  abstraction  upon  a  terrace  ;  muse  over 
a  chapter,  or  coin  a  sentence.  He  had  not  a  single 
passion  or  prejudice :  all  his  convictions  were  the 
result  of  his  own  studies,  and  were  often  opposed 
to  the  impressions  which  he  had  early  imbibed.  He 
not  only  never  entered  into  the  politics  of  the  day, 
but  he  could  never  understand  them.  He  never 
was  connected  with  any  particular  body  or  set  of 
men  ;  comrades  of  school  or  college,  or  confederates 
in  that  public  life  which,  in  England,  is,  perhaps, 
the  only  foundation  of  real  friendship.  In  the  con- 
sideration of  a  question,  his  mind  was  quite  undis- 
turbed by  traditionary  preconceptions  ;  and  it  was 
this  exemption  from  passion  and  prejudice  which, 
although  his  intelligence  was  naturally  somewhat 
too  ingenious  and  fanciful  for  the  conduct  of  close 
argument,  enabled  him,  in  investigation,  often  to 
show  many  of  the  highest  attributes  of  the  judicial 
mind,  and  particularly  to  sum  up  evidence  with 
singular  happiness  and  ability. 


88  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

Although  in  private  life  he  was  of  a  timid  nature, 
his  moral  courage  as  a  writer  was  unimpeachable. 
Most  certainly,  throughout  his  long  career,  he  never 
wrote  a  sentence  which  he  did  not  believe  was  true. 
He  will  generally  be  found  to  be  the  advocate  of  the 
discomfited  and  the  oppressed.     So  his  conclusions 
are  often  opposed  to  popular  impressions.     This  was 
from  no  love  of  paradox,  to  which  he  was  quite  su- 
perior;  but  because  in  the  conduct  of  his  researches, 
he  too  often  found  that  the  unfortunate  are  calum- 
niated.    His  vindication  of  King  James  the  First, 
he  has  himself  described  as  "  an   affair  of  literary 
conscience:"  his  greater  work  on  the  life  and  times 
of  the  son  of  the  first   Stuart  arose  from  the  same 
impulse.     He  had  deeply  studied  our  history  during 
the  first  moiety  of  the  seventeenth  century;  he  looked 
upon  it   as  a  famous  age  ;  he  was  familiar  with  the 
works  of  its  great  ^vriters,  and  there  was  scarcely  one 
of  its  almost  innumerable  pamphlets  with  which  he 
was  not  acquainted.     During  the  thoughtful  investi- 
gations of  many  years,  he    had    arrived    at   results 
which  were  not  adapted  to  please  the  passing  multi- 
tude,  but  which,  because  he  held  them  to  be  authentic, 
he  was  uneasy  lest  he   should  die  without  recording. 
Yet  strong  as  were  his  convictions,  although,  not- 
withstanding his  education  in  the  revolutionary  phi- 
losophy of  the  eighteenth  century,  his  nature  and  his 
studies  had  made  him  a  votary  of  loyalty  and  rever- 
ence, his   pen  was  always  prompt  to  do  justice  to 


OF   THE  AUTHOR.  39 

those  who  might  be  looked  upon  as  the  adversaries 
of  his  own  cause  :  and  this  was  because  his  cause 
was  really  truth.  If  he  have  upheld  Laud  under 
unjust  aspersions,  the  last  labour  of  his  hterary  life 
was  to  vindicate  the  character  of  Hugh  Peters.  If, 
from  the  recollection  of  the  sufferings  of  his  race,  and 
from  profound  retlection  on  the  principles  of  the  In- 
stitution, he  was  hostile  to  the  Papacy,  no  wTiter  in 
our  literature  has  done  more  complete  justice  to  the 
conduct  of  the  English  Romanists.  Who  can  read 
his  history  of  Chidiock  Titchbourne  unmoved  ?  Or 
can  refuse  to  sympathize  with  his  account  of  the 
painful  difficulties  of  the  English  Monarchs  with  their 
loyal  subjects  of  the  old  faith  ?  If  in  a  parliamentary 
country  he  has  dared  to  criticize  the  conduct  of  Par- 
liaments, it  was  only  because  an  impartial  judgment 
had  taught  him,  as  he  himself  expresses  it,  that  "  Par- 
liaments have  their  passions  as  well  as  individuals." 
He  was  five  years  in  the  composition  of  his  work 
on  the  "  Life  and  Reign  of  Charles  the  First,"  and 
the  five  volumes  appeared  at  intervals  between  1828 
and  1831.  It  was  feared  by  his  publisher,  that  the 
distracted  epoch  at  which  this  work  was  issued,  and 
the  tendency  of  the  times,  apparently  so  adverse  to 
his  own  views,  might  prove  very  injurious  to  its  re- 
ception. But  the  effect  of  these  circumstances  was 
the  reverse.  The  minds  of  men  w^ere  inclined  to  the 
grave  and  national  considerations  that  were  involved 
in  these  investigations.     The   principles  of  political 


i^J  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS 

institutions,  the  rival  claims  of  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament,  the  authority  of  the  Established  Church 
the  demands  of  religious  sects,  were,  after  a  lonJ 
lapse  of  years,  anew  the  theme  of  public  discussior" 
Men  were  attracted  to  a  writer  who  traced  the  origin 
of  the  anti-monarchical  principle  in  modern  Europe- 
treated  of  the  arts  of  insurgency ;  gave  them,  at  the 
same  time,  a  critical  history  of  the  Puritans,  and  a 
treatise  on  the  genius  of  the  Papacy ;    scrutinized 
the  conduct  of  triumphant  patriots,  and  vindicated  a 
decapitated  monarch.     The  success  of  this  work  was 
emment;  and  its  author  appeared  for  the  first,  and 
only  time,  of  his  life  in  public,   when    amidst  the 
cheers  of  under-graduates,  and  the  applause  of  graver 
men,  the  solitary  student  received  an  honorary  degree 
from  the  University  of  Oxford,  a  fitting  homage,  in 
the  language  of  the  great  University,  "  optimi  regis 

OPTIMO   VINDICI." 

I  cannot  but  recaU  a  trait  that  happened  on  this 
occasion.     After  my  father  returned  to  his  hotel  from 
the  theati-e,  a  stranger  requested  an  interview  with 
him.     A  Swiss  gentleman,  travelling  in  England  at 
the  time,  who  had  witnessed  the  scene  just  closed 
begged  to  express  the  reason  why  he  presumed  thus 
personally    and    cordially  to    congratulate    the   new 
Doctor  of  Civil  Law.     He  was  the  son  of  my  grand- 
father's  chief  clerk,  and  remembered  his  parent's  em- 
ployer;    whom  he  regretted  did  not  survive  to  be 
aware  of  this  honourable  day.     Thus,  amid  aU  the 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  4^ 

Btrange  vicissitudes  of  life,  we  axe  ever,  as  it  were^ 
moving  in  a  circle. 

Notwithstanding  he  was  now  approaching  his  sev- 
entieth year,  his  health  being  unbroken  and  his  con- 
stitution very  robust,  my  father  resolved  vigorously 
to  devote  himself  to  the  composition  of  the  history 
of  our  vernacular  Literature.  He  hesitated  for  a 
moment,  whether  he  should  at  once  address  himself 
to  this  greater  task,  or  whether  he  should  first  com- 
plete a  Life  of  Pope,  for  which  he  had  made  great 
preparations,  and  which  had  long  occupied  his 
thoughts.  His  review  of  "  Spence's  Anecdotes  "  in 
the  Quarterly,  so  far  back  as  1820,  which  gave  rise 
to  the  celebrated  Pope  Controversy,  in  which  Mr. 
Campbell,  Lord  Byron,  Mr.  Bowles,  Mr.  Roscoe,  and 
others  less  eminent  broke  lances,  would  prove  how 
well  qualified,  even  at  that  distant  date,  the  critic 
was  to  become  the  biographer  of  the  great  writer, 
whose  literary  excellency  and  moral  conduct  he,  on 
that  occasion,  alike  vindicated.  But,  unfortunately 
as  it  turned  out,  my  father  was  persuaded  to  address 
himself  to  the  weightier  task.  Hitherto,  in  his  pub- 
lications, he  had  always  felt  an  extreme  reluctance 
to  travel  over  ground  which  others  had  previously 
visited.  He  liked  to  give  new  matter,  and  devote 
himself  to  detached  points,  on  which  he  entertained 
different  opinions  from  those  prevalent.  Thus  his 
works  are  generally  of  a  supplementary  character, 
and  assunie  in  their  readers  a  certain  degree  of  pre- 


42  LIFE   AND   WRITINGS 

liminary  knowledge.  In  the  present  instance,  he 
was  induced  to  frame  his  undertaking  on  a  different 
Bcale,  and  to  prepare  a  history  which  should  be  com- 
plete  in  itself,  and  supply  the  reader  with  a  perfect 
view  of  the  gradual  formation  of  our  language  and 
literature.  He  proposed  to  effect  this  in  six  vol- 
umes ;  though,  I  apprehend,  he  would  not  have  suc- 
ceeded in  fulfilling  his  intentions  within  that  limit. 
His  treatment  of  the  period  of  Queen  Anne  would 
have  been  very  ample,  and  he  would  also  have  ac- 
complished in  this  general  work,  a  purpose  which  he 
had  also  long  contemplated,  and  for  which  he  had 
made  curious  and  extensive  collections,  namely,  a 
History  of  the  English  Freethinkers. 

But  aU  these  great  plans  were  destined  to  a  terri- 
ble defeat.     Towards  the  end  of  the  year  1839,  still 
in  the  full  vigour  of  his  health  and  intellect,  he  suf- 
fered a  paralysis  of  the  optic  nerve ;  and  that  eye, 
which  for  so  long  a  term  had  kindled  with  critical 
interest  over  the  volumes  of  so  many  literatures  and 
so  many  languages,  was  doomed  to  pursue  its  ani- 
mated course  no  more.     Considering  the  bitterness 
of  such  a  calamity  to  one  whose  powers  were  other- 
wise not  in  the  least  impaired,  he  bore  on  the  whole 
his  fate  with  magnanimity,  even  with  cheerfulness. 
Unhappily,  his  previous  habits  of  study  and  compo- 
sition  rendered    the   habit  of  dictation    intolerable, 
even  impossible  to  him.     But  with  the    assistance 
of  his  daughter,  whose  intelligent  solicitude  he  has 


OF   THE    AUTHOR.  43 

commemorated  in  more  than  one  grateful  passage, 
he  selected  from  his  manuscripts  three  volumes, 
which  he  witched  to  have  published  under  the  be- 
coming title  of  "  A  Fragment  of  a  History  of  Eng- 
lish Literature,"  but  which  were  eventually  given 
to  the  public  under  that  of  "  Amenities  of  Liter- 
ature." 

He  was  also  enabled  during  these  last  years  of 
physical,  though  not  of  moral,  gloom,  to  prepare  a 
new  edition  of  his  work  on  the  Life  and  Times  of 
Charles  the  First  which  had  been  for  some  time 
out  of  print.  He  contrived,  though  slowly,  and 
with  great  labour,  very  carefully  to  revise,  and 
improve,  and  enrich  these  volumes,  which  will  now 
be  condensed  into  three.  His  miscellaneous  works, 
all  illustrative  of  the  political  and  literary  history 
of  this  country,  will  form  three  more.  He  was 
wont  to  say  that  the  best  monument  to  an  author 
was  a  good  edition  of  his  works  :  it  is  my  purpose 
that  he  should  possess  this  memorial.  He  has  been 
described  by  a  great  authority  as  a  writer  sui  gen- 
eris ;  and  indeed  had  he  never  written,  it  appears  to 
me,  that  there  would  have  been  a  gap  in  our  libra- 
ries, which  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  supply. 
Of  him  it  might  be  added  that,  for  an  author,  his 
end  was  an  euthanasia,  for  on  the  day  before  he 
was  seized  by  that  fatal  epidemic,  of  the  danger  of 
which,  to  the  last  moment,  he  was  unconscious,  he 
was  apprised  by  his  publishers,  that  all  his  works 


44  LIFE   AND   WRfTINGS 

were  out  of  print,  and  that  their  republication  could 
no  longer  be  delayed. 

In  this  notice  of  the  career  of  my  father,  I  have 
ventured  to  draw  attention  to  three  circumstances 
which  I  thought  would  be  esteemed  interesting  ; 
namely,  predisposition,  self-formation,  and  sympathy 
with  his  order.  There  is  yet  another  which  com- 
pletes and  crowns  the  character,— constancy  of 
purpose ;  and  it  is  only  in  considering  his  course 
as  a  whole,  that  we  see  how  harmonious  and 
consistent  have  been  that  life  and  its  labom-s,  which, 
in  a  partial  and  brief  view,  might  be  supposed  to 
have  been  somewhat  desultory  and  fragmentary. 

On  his  moral  character  I  shall  scarcely  presume 
to   dwell.     The    philosophic   sweetness   of  his    dis- 
position, the  serenity  of  his  lot,  and  the  elevating 
nature  of  his  pursuits,  combined  to  enable  him  to 
pass  through  life  without  an  evil  act,  almost  without 
an   evil  thought.     As   the   world   has   always  been 
fond  of  personal  details  respecting  men  who  have 
been    celebrated,  I   wiU   mention  that  he  was  fair, 
with    a   Bourbon    nose,  and   brown    eyes  of  extra- 
ordinary beauty  and  lustre.     He  wore  a  small  black 
velvet  cap,  but  his  white  hair  latterly  touched  his 
shoulders  in  curls  almost  as  flowing  as  in  his  boy- 
hood.     His    extremities    were    delicate    and    well- 
formed,   and   his   leg,  at   his   last  hour,  as  shapely 
as  in  his  youth,  which   showed  the  vigour  of  his 
frame.     Latterly  he  had  become  corpulent.     He  did 


OF   THE   AUTHOR.  45 

not  excel  in  conversation,  though  in  his  domestic 
ciicle  he  was  garrulous.  Everything  interested  him; 
and  blind,  and  eighty-two,  he  was  still  as  susceptible 
as  a  child.  One  of  his  last  acts  was  to  compose 
some  verses  of  gay  gratitude  to  his  daughter-in-law, 
who  was  his  London  coiTespondent,  and  to  whose 
lively  pen  his  last  years  were  indebted  for  constant 
amusement.  He  had  by  nature  a  singular  volatility 
which  never  deserted  him.  His  feelings,  though 
always  amiable,  were  not  painfully  deep,  and  amid 
joy  or  sorrow,  the  philosophic  vein  was  ever  evident. 
He  more  resembled  Goldsmith  than  any  man  that 
I  can  compare  him  to:  in  his  conversation,  his 
apparent  confusion  of  ideas  ending  with  some  fe- 
licitous phrase  of  genius,  his  naivete,  his  simplicity 
not  untouched  with  a  dash  of  sarcasm  affecting 
innocence — one  was  often  reminded  of  the  gifted 
and  interesting  friend  of  Burke  and  Johnson.  There 
was,  however,  one  trait  in  which  my  father  did  not 
resemble  Goldsmith :  he  had  no  vanity.  Indeed, 
one  of  his  few  infirmities  was  rather  a  deficiency 
of  self-esteem. 

On  the  whole,  I  hope — nay  I  believe — that  taking 
all  into  consideration — the  integrity  and  complete- 
ness of  his  existence,  the  fact  that,  for  sixty  years, 
he  largely  contributed  to  form  the  taste,  charm  the 
leisure,  and  direct  the  studious  dispositions,  of  the 
great  body  of  the  public,  and  that  his  works  have 


4(5  LIFE   AND    WRITINGS   OF   THE   AUTHOR. 

extensively  and  curiously  illustrated  the  literary  and 
political  liistory  of  our  country,  it  will  be  conceded, 
that  in  his  life  and  labours,  he  repaid  England  for 
the  protection  and  the  hospitality  which  this  country 
accorded  to  his  father  a  century  ago. 

D. 

HcGUEXDEN  Manor, 

Cln-idmas,  1848. 


CURIOSITIES   OF  LITERATURE. 


CURIOSITIES  OF  LITERATURE. 


LIBRARIES. 


The  passion  for  forming  vast  collections  of  books  has 
necessarily  existed  in  all  periods  of  human  curiosity ;  but 
long  it  required  regal  munificence  to  found  a  national  hbrary. 
It  is  only  since  the  art  of  multiplying  the  productions  of  the 
mind  has  been  discovered,  that  men  of  letters  themselves 
have  been  enabled  to  rival  this  imperial  and  patriotic  honour. 
The  taste  for  books,  so  rare  before  the  fifteenth  century,  has 
gradually  become  general  only  within  these  four  hundred 
years  :  in  that  small  space  of  time  the  public  mind  of  Europe 
has  been  created. 

Of  LiBnARiES,  the  following  anecdotes  seem  most  inter- 
esting, as  they  mark  either  the  affection,  or  the  veneration, 
which  civilized  men  have  ever  felt  for  these  perennial  reposi- 
tories of  their  minds.  The  first  national  library  founded  in 
Egypt  seemed  to  have  been  placed  under  the  protection  of 
the  divinities,  for  their  statues  magnificently  adorned  this 
temple,  dedicated  at  once  to  religion  and  to  literature.  It 
was  still  further  embellished  by  a  well-known  inscription,  for 
ever  grateful  to  the  votary  of  literature  ;  on  the  front  was 
engraven — "  The  nourishment  of  the  soul ;  "  or,  according 
to  Diodorus,  "  The  medicine  of  the  mind." 

The  Egyptian  Ptolemies  founded  the  vast  hbrary  of  Alex- 

VOU  1.  4 


50  LIBRARIES. 

aiidria,  which  was  afterwards  the  emulative  kibour  of  rival 
monarchs  ;  the  founder  infused  a  soul  into  the  vast  body  he 
was  creating,  by  his  clioice  of  the  librarian,  Demetrius  Plia- 
lereus,  whose  skilful  industry  amassed  from  all  nations  their 
choicest  productions.  AVithout  such  a  librarian,  a  national 
library  would  be  little  more  than  a  literary  chaos  ;  his  well- 
exercised  memory  and  critical  judgment  are  its  best  cata- 
logue. One  of  the  Ptolemies  refused  supplying  the  famished 
Athenians  with  wheat,  until  they  presented  him  with  the 
original  manuscripts  of  -iEschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  ; 
and  in  returning  copies  of  these  autogra[)hs,  he  allowed  them 
to  retain  the  fifteen  talents  wliich  he  had  pledged  with  them 
as  a  princely  security. 

AV^hen  tyrants,  or  usurpers,  have  possessed  sense  as  well 
d.s  courage,  they  have  proved  the  most  ardent  patrons  of 
literature  ;  they  know  it  is  their  interest  to  turn  aside  the 
pubUc  mind  from  political  speculations,  and  to  aiFord  their 
subjects  the  inexhaustible  occupations  of  curiosity,  and  the 
consoling  pleasures  of  the  imagination.  Thus  Pisistratus 
is  said  to  have  been  among  the  earliest  of  the  Greeks,  who 
projected  an  immense  collection  of  the  w^orks  of  the  learned, 
and  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  collector  of  the  scattered 
works,  which  passed  under  the  name  of  Homer. 

The  Romans,  after  six  centuries  of  gradual  dominion, 
must  have  possessed  the  vast  and  diversified  collections  of 
the  writmgs  of  the  nations  they  conquered  :  among  the  most 
valued  spoils  of  their  victories,  we  know  that  manuscripts 
were  considered  as  more  pi'ecious  than  vases  of  gold.  Pau- 
lus  Emilius,  after  the  defeat  of  Perseus,  king  of  Macedon, 
brought  to  Rome  a  great  number  which  he  had  amassed  in 
Greece,  and  which  he  now  distributed  among  his  solis,  or 
presented  to  the  Roman  people.  Sylla  followed  his  example. 
After  the  siege  of  Athens,  he  discovei"ed  an  entire  library  in 
the  temple  of  Apollo,  which  having  carried  to  Rome,  he 
appears  to  have  been  the  founder  of  the  first  Roman  public 
library.     After  the  taking  of  Carthage,  the  Roman  senate 


LIBRARIES.  51 

rewarded  the  family  of  Regulus  with  the  books  found  in  that 
city.  A  hbrary  was  a  national  gift,  and  the  most  honourable 
they  could  bestow.  From  the  intercourse  of  the  Romans 
with  the  Greeks,  the  passion  for  forming  hbraries  rapidly 
increased,  and  individuals  began  to  pride  themselves  on  their 
private  collections. 

Of  many  illustrious  Romans,  their  magnificent  taste  in 
their  libraries  has  been  recorded.  Asinius  PoUio,  Crassus, 
Caesar,  and  Cicero,  have,  among  others,  been  celebrated  for 
their  literary  s])lendor.  LucuUus,  whose  incredible  opulence 
exhausted  itself  on  more  than  imperial  luxuries,  more  hon- 
ourably distinguished  himself  by  his  vast  collections  of  books, 
and  the  happy  use  he  made  of  them  by  the  liberal  access  he 
allowed  the  learned.  "  It  was  a  library,"  says  Plutarch, 
"  whose  walks,  galleries,  and  cabinets,  were  oj)en  to  all  vis- 
itors ;  and  the  ingenious  Greeks,  when  at  leisure,  resorted  to 
this  abode  of  the  Muses  to  hold  literary  conversations,  in 
which  Lucullus  himself  loved  to  join."  This  library,  en- 
larged by  others,  Julius  Cajsar  once  j)roposed  to  open  ibr  the 
public,  having  chosen  the  erudite  Yarro  for  its  librarian  ;  but 
the  daggers  of  lirutus  and  his  party  prevented  the  meditated 
projects  of  Cajsar.  In  this  museum,  Cicero  frequently  pur- 
sued his  studies,  during  the  time  his  friend  Faustus  had  the 
charge  of  it ;  which  he  describes  to  Atticus  in  his  4th  Book, 
Epist.  9.  Amidst  his  pubhc  occupations  and  his  private 
studies,  either  of  them  sufficient  to  have  immortalized  one 
man,  we  are  astonished  at  the  minute  attention  Cicero  paid 
to  the  formation  of  his  hbraries  and  his  cabinets  of  antiqui- 
ties. 

The  emperors  were  ambitious,  at  length,  to  give  their 
names  to  the  libraries  they  founded  ;  they  did  not  consider 
tlie  purple  as  their  chief  ornament.  Augustus  was  himself 
an  author ;  and  to  one  of  those  sumptuous  buildings,  called 
'Iliermce,  ornamented  with  porticos,  galleries,  and  statues, 
with  sliady  walks,  and  refreshing  baths,  testified  his  love  of 
literature  by  adding  a  magnificent  library.     One  of  these 


52  LIBRARIES. 

Ubraries  he  fondly  called  by  the  name  of  his  sister  Octavia  ? 
and  the  other,  the  temple  of  Apollo,  became  the  haunt  of  the 
poets,  as  Horace,  Juvenal,  and  Persius  have  commemorated. 
The  successors  of  Augustus  imitated  his  example,  and  even 
Tiberius  had  an  imperial  library,  chiefly  consisting  of  works 
concerning  the  empire  and  the  acts  of  its  sovereigns.  These 
Trajan  augmented  by  the  Ulpian  libraiy,  denominated  from 
his  family  name.  In  a  word,  we  have  accounts  of  the  rich 
ornaments  the  ancients  bestowed  on  their  hbraries  ;  of  their 
floors  paved  with  marble,  their  walls  covered  with  glass  and 
ivory,  and  their  shelves  and  desks  of  ebony  and  cedar. 

The  first  public  library  in  Italy  was  founded  by  a  person 
of  no  considerable  fortune  :  his  credit,  liis  frugality,  and  for- 
titude, were  indeed  equal  to  a  treasury.     Nicholas  Niccoh, 
the  son  of  a  merchant,  after  the  death  of  his  father  relin- 
quished the  beaten  roads  of  gain,  and  devoted  his  soul  to 
study,  and  his  fortune  to  assist  students.     At  his  death,  he 
left  liis  hbrary  to  the  public,  but  his  debts  exceeding  his 
effects,  the  princely  generosity  of  Cosmo  de'  Medici  realized 
the  intention  of  its  former  possessor,  and  afterwards  enriched 
it  by  the  addition  of  an  apartment,  in  which  he  placed  the 
Greek,  Hebrew,  Arabic,.  Chaldaic,  and  Indian  MSS.     The 
intrepid  spirit  of  Nicholas  V.  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
Vatican  ;  the  affection  of  Cardinal  Bessarion  for  his  country 
first  gave  Venice  the  rudiments  of  a  pubUc  library ;  and  to 
Sir  T.  Bodley  we  owe  the  invaluable  one  of  Oxford.     Su- 
Robert  Cotton,  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  Dr.  Birch,  Mr.  Cracherode, 
Mr.  Douce,  and  others  of  this  race  of  lovers  of  books,  have 
all  contributed  to  form   these   hterary  treasures,  which  our 
nation  owe  to  the  enthusiasm  of  individuals,  who  have  conse- 
crated   their   fortunes    and  their  days   to  this  great  public 
object;  or,  which  in  the  result  produces  the  same  pubhc 
good,  the  collections  of  such  men  have  been  frequently  pur- 
chased on  their  deaths,  by  government,  and  thus  have  been 
preserved  entire  in  our  national  collections. 

LiTERATuuE,  like  virtue,  is  often  its  own  reward,  and  the 


LIBRARIES.  53 

enthusiasm  some  experience  in  the  permanent  enjoyments  of 
a  vast  library  has  for  outweighed  tlie  neglect  or  the  calumny 
of  the  world,  which  some  of  its  votaries  have  received. 
From  the  time  that  Cicero  poured  forth  his  feelings  in  his 
oration  for  the  poet  Archias,  innumerable  are  the  testimonies 
of  men  of  letters  of  the  pleasurable  delirium  of  their  re- 
searches. Richard  de  Bury,  Bishop  of  Durham,  and  Chan- 
cellor of  England,  so  early  as  1341,  perhaps  raised  the  first 
private  library  in  our  country.  He  purchased  thirty  or  forty 
volumes  of  the  Abbot  of  St.  Albans  for  fifty  pounds'  weight 
of  silver.  He  was  so  enamoured  of  his  large  collection,  that 
he  expressly  composed  a  treatise  on  his  love  of  books,  under 
the  title  of  Philvbiblion  ;  and  which  has  been  recently  trans- 
lated. 

He  who  passes  much  of  his  time  amid  such  vast  resources, 
and  does  not  aspire  to  make  some  small  addition  to  his  library, 
were  it  only  by  a  critical  catalogue,  must  indeed  be  not  more 
animated  than  a  leaden  Mercury.  He  must  be  as  indolent 
as  that  animal  called  the  Sloth,  who  perishes  on  the  tree  he 
climbs,  after  he  has  eaten  all  its  leaves. 

Rantzau,  the  founder  of  the  gi-eat  library  at  Copenhagen, 
whose  days  were  dissolved  in  the  pleasures  of  reading,  dis- 
covers his  taste  and  ardour  in  the  following  elegant  effu- 
sion :  - 

Salvete  aureoli  mci  libelli, 

Meae  delicioe,  mei  lepores! 

Quam  vos  sscpe  oculis  juvat  videre, 

YA  tritos  manibus  tenere  nostris! 

Tot  vos  eximii,  tot  eniditi, 

Prisci  lumina  sseculi  et  recentis, 

Confecere  viri,  suasque  vobis 

Ausi  credere  lucubrationes: 

Et  sperare  decus  perenne  scriptis; 

Neque  hsec  iiTita  spes  fefeUit  illos. 

IMITATED. 

Golden  volumes !  richest  treasures'. 
Objects  of  delicious  pleasures ! 
You  my  eyes  rejoicing  please, 


54  LIBRA  RIKS. 

You  my  hands  in  rapture  seize! 
Brilliant  wits,  and  musing  sages, 
Lights  wiio  beamed  through  many  ages, 
Left  to  your  conscious  leaves  their  story, 
And  dared  to  trust  you  with  their  glory; 
And  now  their  hope  of  fame  achieved, 
Dear  volumes !  you  have  not  deceived ! 

This  passion  for  tlie   enjoyment  of  books  has  occasioned 
their  lovers  embellisliing  their  outsides  with  costly  ornaments ; 
a  fancy  which  ostentation  may  have  abused ;  but  when  these 
volumes  belong  to  the  real  man  of  letters,  the  most  fanciful 
bindings  are  often   the   emblems  of  his  taste  and  feelings. 
The  great  Thuanus  procured  the  finest  copies  for  his  library, 
and  his  volumes  are  still  eagerly  purchased,  bearing  his  auto- 
graph on  the  last  page.    A  celebrated  amateur,  was  Grollier ; 
the  Muses  themselves  could  not  more  ingeniously  have  orna- 
mented their  favourite  works.     I  have  seen  several  in  the 
libraries  of  curious  collectors.     They  are  gilded  and  stamped 
with  peculiar  neatness ;  the  compartments  on  the  binding  are 
draAvn   and  painted,  with  subjects   analogous   to   the   works 
themselves  ;  and  they  are  further  adorned  by  that  amiable 
inscription,  Jo.  GrolUerii  et  amicorum  ! — purportino-  that  these 
literary  treasures  were  collected  for  himself  and  for  his  friends. 
The  family  of  the  Fuggers  had  long  felt  an  hereditary 
passion  for  the  accumulation  of  literary  treasures ;  and  their 
portraits,  with  others  in  their  picture  gallery,  fonn  a  curious 
quarto   volume  of    127    portraits,    rare   even   in    Germany, 
entitled    "  Fuggerorum    Pinacotheca."     Wolfius,    who    daily 
haunted  their  celebrated  library,  pours  out  his  gratitude  in 
some  Greek  verses,  and  describes  this  bibhotheque  as  a  lite- 
rary heaven,  furnished  with  as  many  books  as   there  were 
stars  in  the  firmament ;  or  as  a  literary  garden,  in  which  he 
passed  entire  days  in  gathering  fruit  and  flowers,  delighting 
and  instructing  himself  by  perpetual  occupation. 

In  1364,  the  royal  library  of  France  did  not  exceed  twenty 
volumes.  Shortly  after,  Charles  V.  mcreased  it  to  900,  which, 
by  the  fate  of  war,  as  much  at  least  as  by  that  of  money,  the 


LIRRAIIIES.  55 

Duke  of  Bedford  afterwards  purchased  and  ti-ansjjorted  to 
London,  whei'e  libraries  were  smaller  than  on  the  c-ontiu«-nt, 
about  1440.  It  is  a  circumstance  woithy  obsei-vation,  that 
the  French  sovereign,  Charles  V.  sumamed  the  Wise,  ordered 
that  thirty  portable  lights,  with  a  silver  lamp  suspended  from 
the  centre,  should  be  illuminated  at  night,  that  students  might 
not  find  their  pursuits  inten-upted  at  any  hour.  Many 
among  U3,  at  this  moment,  whose  professional  avocations 
aihnit  not  of  morning  studies,  find  that  the  resources  of  a 
])ublic  library  are  not  accessible  to  them,  from  the  omission 
of  the  regulation  of  the  zealous  Charles  V.  of  France.  An 
objection  to  night-studies  in  public  hbraries  is  the  danger  of 
fire,  and  in  our  own  British  Museum  not  a  light  is  pennitted 
to  be  carried  about  on  any  pretence  whatever.  The  history 
of  the  "  Bibliotheque  du  Roi "  is  a  curious  incident  in  litera- 
ture ;  and  the  progress  of  the  human  mind  and  public  opin- 
ion might  be  traced  by  its  gi-adual  accessions,  noting  the 
changeable  qualities  of  its  literary  stores  chiefly  from  theol- 
ogy, law,  and  medicine,  to  philosophy  and  elegant  literature. 
It  was  first  under  Louis  XIV.  that  the  productions  of  the  art 
of  engraving  were  there  collected  and  arranged ;  the  great 
minister  Colbert  purchased  the  extensive  collections  of  the 
Abbe  de  MaroUes,  who  may  be  ranked  among  the  fathers  of 
our  print-collectors.  Two  hundred  and  sixty-four  ample  port- 
fohos  laid  the  foundations ;  and  the  very  catalogues  of  his 
collections,  printed  by  Marolles  himself,  are  rare  and  high- 
priced.  Our  own  national  print  gallery  is  growing  from  its 
infant  establishment. 

]Mr.  Hallam  has  observed,  that  in  1440,  England  had  made 
comparatively  but  little  progi'ess  in  learning — and  Germany 
was  pro])ably  still  less  advanced.  However,  in  Germany, 
Trithemius,  the  celebrated  abbot  of  Spanheim,  who  died  in 
1516,  had  amassed  about  two  thousand  manuscripts  ;  a  liter- 
ary treasure  which  excited  such  general  attention  that  princes 
and  eminent  men  travelled  to  visit  Trithemius  and  his  library. 
About  this  time,  six  or  eight  hundred  %olumes  formed  a  royal 


56  LIBRARIES. 

coUection,  and  their  cost  could  only  be  furnished  by  a  prince. 
This  was  indeed  a  great  advancement  in  libraries,  for  at  the 
beaming  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  hbrary  of  Louis 
IX.  contanied  only  four  classical  authors  ;  and  that  of  Ox- 
ford, m  1300,  consisted  of  "a  few  tracts  kept  in  chests." 

The  pleasures  of  study  are  classed  by  Burton  anion- those 
exercises  or  recreations  of  the  mind  which  pass  withindoors 
Loolung  about  tliis  "  worid  of  books,"  he  exclaims,  "I  could 
even  live  and  die  with  such  meditations,  and  take  more  de- 
light  and  true  content  of  mbd  m  them  than  in  aU  thy  wealth 
and  sport !     There  is  a  sweetness,  wluch,  as  Circe's  cup,  be- 
witcheth  a  student:  he  cannot  leave  off,  as  weU  may  witness 
those  many  laborious  hours,  days,  and  nights,  spent  in  then- 
voluminous  treatises.    So  sweet  is  the  delight  of  study.    The 
last  day  is  prioris  discipulus.     Heinsius  was  mewed  up  in 
the  hbrary  of  Leyden  all   the  year  long,  and  that  which  to 
my  thinking,  should  have  bred  a  loathing,  caused  in  him  a 
greater  liking.    '  I  no  sooner,'  saith  he,  '  come  into  the  hbrary 
but  I  bolt  the  door  to  me,  excluding  Lust,  Ambition,  Avarice' 
and  aU  such  vices,  whose  nurse  is  Idleness,  the  mother  of 
Ignorance  and  Melancholy.     In  the  very  lap  of  eternity 
amongst  so  many  divine  souls,  I  take  my  seat  with  so  lofty  a 
spirit,  and  sweet  content,  that  I  pity  aU  our  great  ones  and 
nch  men,  that  know  not  this  happiness.'  "    Such  is  the  incense 
of  a  votary  who  scatters  it  on  the  altar  less  for  the  ceremony 
than  from  the  devotion. 

There  is,  however,  an  mtemperance  m  study,  incompatible 
often  with  our  social  or  more  active  duties.  The  illustrious 
Gi-otius  exposed  hhnself  to  the  reproaches  of  some  of  his 
contemporaries  for  having  too  warmly  pursued  his  studies,  to 
the  detriment  of  his  public  station.  It  was  the  boast  of  Cicero 
that  Ins  philosophical  studies  had  never  interfered  with  the 
services  he  owed  the  repubhc,  and  that  he  had  only  dedicated 
to  them  the  hours  which  others  give  to  their  walks,  their  re- 
pasts, and  their  pleasures.  Lookmg  on  his  volummous  labours, 
we  are  surprised  at  this  obsei-vation  ;— how  honourable  is  it 


THE    BIBLIOMANIA.  57 

to  him,  that  his  various  philosopliical  works  bear  the  titles  of 
tlie  different  villas  he  possessed,  which  indicates  that  they  were 
composed  in  these  respective  retirements !  Cicero  must  have 
been  an  early  riser ;  and  practised  that  magic  art  in  the  em- 
ploj-ment  of  time,  which  multiphes  our  days. 


THE  BIBLIOMANIA. 

The  preceding  article  is  honourable  to  literature,  yet  even 
a  passion  for  collecting  books  is  not  always  a  passion  for 
literature. 

The  Bibliomania,  or  the  collecting  an  enormous  heap  of 
books  without  intelligent  curiosity,  has,  since  hbraries  have 
existed,  infected  weak  minds,  who  imagine  that  they  them- 
selves acquire  knowledge  when  they  keep  it  on  their  shelves. 
Their  motley  hbraries  have  been  called  the  madhouses  of  the 
human  mind;  and  again,  the  tomb  of  hooks,  when  the  posses- 
sor will  not  communicate  them,  and  coffins  them  up  in  the 
cases  of  his  hbrary.  It  was  facetiously  observed,  these  col- 
lections are  not  without  a  Lock  on  the  Human  Understand- 
ing,* 

The  Bibliomania  never  raged  more  violently  than  in  our 
own  times.  It  is  fortunate  that  hterature  is  in  no  ways  in- 
jured by  the  follies  of  collectors,  since  though  they  preserve 
the  worthless,  they  necessarily  protect  the  good. 

Some  collectors  place  all  their  fame  on  the  view  of  a  splendid 
library,  where  volumes,  arrayed  in  all  the  pomp  of  lettering, 
eilk  linings,  triple  gold  bands,  and  tinted  leather,  are  locked 
up  in  wire  cases,  and  secured  from  the  vulgar  hands  of  the 

*  An  allusion  and  pun  -which  occasioned  the  French  translator  of  the 
present  work  an  unlucky  blunder:  puzzled,  no  doubt,  by  my  faceliuusly, 
he  translates  "  mettant,  comme  on  I'a  tres-Judicieiisement  fait  obser\'er, 
Teiitendement  huinain  sous  la  clef."  The  great  work  and  the  great  author 
alluded  to,  having  quite  escaped  him ! 


58  THE  BIBLIOMANIA. 

mere  reader,  dazzling  our  eyes  like  eastern  beauties  peering 
through  their  jalousies ! 

La  Bruyeke  has  touched  on  this  mania  with  humour  : — 
*'  Of  such  a  collector,  as  soon  as  I  enter  his  house,  I  am  ready 
to  faint  on  the  staircase,  from  a  strong  smell  of  Morocco 
leather.  In  vain  he  shows  me  fine  editions,  gold  leaves, 
Etruscan  bindings,  and  naming  them  one  after  another,  as  if 
he  were  showing  a  gallery  of  pictures  !  a  gallery,  by  the  by, 
which  he  seldom  traverses  Avhen  alone,  for  he  rarely  reads ; 
but  me  he  offers  to  conduct  throngh  it !  I  thank  him  for  his 
politeness,  and  as  httle  as  himself  care  to  visit  the  tan-house, 
which  he  calls  his  library." 

Luc  IAN  has  composed  a  biting  invective  against  an  igno- 
rant possessor  of  a  vast  library,  like  him,  who  in  the  present 
day,  after  turning  over  the  pages  of  an  old  book,  chiefly  ad- 
mires the  dale.  Luciax  compares  liim  to  a  pilot,  who  was 
never  taught  the  science  of  navigation ;  to  a  rider  who  cannot 
keep  his  seat  on  a  si)irited  horse  ;  to  a  man  who,  not  having 
the  use  of  his  feet,  would  conceal  the  defect  by  wearing  em- 
broidered shoes  ;  but,  alas  !  he  cannot  stand  in  them !  He 
ludicrously  compares  him  to  Thersites  wearing  the  armour 
of  Acliilles,  tottering  at  every  step ;  leering  with  his  little 
eyes  under  his  enormous  helmet,  and  liis  hunchback  raising 
the  cuirass  above  his  shoulders.  Why  do  you  buy  so  many 
books  ?  You  have  no  hair,  and  you  purchase  a  comb  ;  you  are 
blind,  and  you  will  have  a  grand  mirror  ;  you  are  deaf,  and 
you  will  have  fine  musical  instruments !  Your  costly  bind- 
ings are  only  a  source  of  vexation,  and  you  are  continually 
discharging  your  librarians  for  not  preserving  them  from  the 
silent  invasion  of  the  worms,  and  the  nibbhng  triumphs  of 
the  rats ! 

Such  collectors  will  contemptuously  smile  at  the  collection 
of  the  amiable  Melancthon.  He  possessed  in  his  library  only 
four  authors, — Plato,  Pluiy,  Plutarch,  and  Ptolemy  the  geog- 
rapher. 

Ancillon  was  a  gi-eat  collector  of  curious  books,  and  dex 


THE   BIBLIOMANIA.  59 

terously  defended  himself  when  accused  of  the  Bihliomania. 
He  gave  a  good  reason  for  buying  the  most  elegant  editions ; 
which  he  did  not  consider  merely  as  a  literary  luxury.  I'he 
less  the  eyes  are  fatigued  in  reading  a  work,  the  more  liberty 
the  mind  feels  to  judge  of  it :  and  as  we  perceive  more 
clearly  the  excellences  and  defects  of  a  printed  book  than 
when  in  MS. ;  so  we  see  them  more  plainly  in  good  paper 
and  clear  type,  than  when  the  unpression  and  paper  are  both 
bad.  He  always  purchased  first  editions,  and  never  waited 
for  second  ones ;  though  it  is  the  opinion  of  some  that  a  first 
edition  is  only  to  be  considered  as  an  imperfect  essay,  which 
the  author  proposes  to  finish  after  he  has  tried  the  sentiments 
of  the  hterary  world.  Bayle  approves  of  Ancillon's  plan. 
Those  who  wait  for  a  book  till  it  is  reprinted,  show  plamly 
that  they  prefer  the  saving  of  a  pistole  to  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge.  With  one  of  these  persons,  who  waited  for  a 
second  edition,  which  never  appeared,  a  literary  man  argued, 
that  it  was  better  to  have  two  editions  of  a  book  rather  than 
to  deprive  himself  of  the  advantage  which  the  reading  of  the 
first  might  procure  him.  It  has  frequently  happened,  be- 
sides, that  in  second  editions,  the  author  omits,  as  well  as 
adds,  or  makes  alterations  from  prudential  reasons  ;  the  dis- 
pleasing truths  which  he  corrects,  as  he  might  call  them,  are 
so  many  losses  incurred  by  Truth  itself.  There  is  an  advan- 
tage in  comparing  the  first  with  subsequent  editions  ;  among 
other  things,  we  feel  great  satisfaction  in  tracing  the  varia- 
tions of  a  woi'k,  after  its  revision.  There  are  also  other 
secrets,  well  known  to  the  intelhgent  curious,  Avho  are  versed 
in  affairs  relating  to  books.  Many  first  editions  are  not  to 
be  pui'chased  for  the  treble  value  of  later  ones.  The  collector 
we  have  noticed  frequently  said,  as  is  related  of  Virgil,  "  1 
collect  gold  from  Ennius's  dung."  I  find,  in  some  neglected 
authors,  particular  things,  not  elsewhere  to  be  found.  He 
read  many  of  these,  but  not  with  equal  attention — "  Sicut 
canis  ad  Nilum,  hihens  et  fagiens  ;  "  like  a  dog  at  the  Nile, 
drinkhior  and  runnine:. 


60  LITERARY  JOURNALS. 

Fortunate  are  those  who  only  consider  a  book  for  the 
utility  and  pleasure  they  may  derive  from  its  possession. 
Students  who  know  much,  and  still  tliirst  to  know  more,  may 
require  this  vast  sea  of  books ;  yet  in  that  sea  they  may 
suiFer  many  shipwrecks. 

Great  collections  of  books  are  subject  to  certain  accidents 
besides  the  damp,  the  worms,  and  the  rats ;  one  not  less 
common  is  that  of  the  borrowers,  not  to  say  a  word  of  the 
purloiners  I 


LITERARY  JOURNALS. 

When  writers  were  not  numerous,  and  readers  rare,  the 
unsuccessful  author  fell  insensibly  into  oblivion ;  he  dissolved 
away  in  his  own  weakness.  If  he  committed  the  private 
folly  of  printing  what  no  one  would  pui'chase,  he  was  not 
arraigned  at  the  public  tribunal — and  the  awful  terrors  of  his 
day  of  judgment  consisted  only  in  the  retributions  of  his 
pubhsher's  final  accounts.  At  length,  a  taste  for  literature 
spread  through  the  body  of  the  people  ;  vanity  induced  the 
inexperienced  and  the  ignorant  to  aspu-e  to  hterary  honours. 
To  oppose  these  forcible  entries  into  the  haunts  of  the  Muses, 
periodical  criticism  brandished  its  formidable  weapon ;  and 
the  fall  of  many,  taught  some  of  our  greatest  geniuses  to  rise. 
Multifarious  writings  produced  multifarious  strictures ;  and 
pubUc  criticism  reached  to  such  perfection,  that  taste  was 
generally  diffused,  enlightening  those  whose  occupations  had 
otherwise  never  permitted  them  to  judge  of  hterary  composi- 
tions. 

The  invention  of  Reviews,  in  the  form  which  they  have 
at  length  gradually  assumed,  could  not  have  existed  but  in 
the  most  poUshed  ages  of  hterature  ;  for  without  a  constant 
supply  of  authors,  and  a  refined  spirit  of  criticism,  they  could 
not  excite  a  perpetual  interest  among  the  lovers  of  hterature. 
These  publications   were  long  the  chronicles  of  taste  and 


LITERARY  JOURNALS.  61 

science,  presenting  the  existing  state  of  the  public  mind, 
while  they  formed  a  ready  resource  for  those  idle  hours, 
which  men  of  letters  would  not  pass  idly. 

Their  multiphcity  has  undoubtedly  produced  much  evil 
puerUe  critics  and  venal  di'udges  manufacture  reviews  ;  hence 
that  shameful  discordance  of  opinion,  which  is  the  scorn  and 
scandal  of  ci'iticism.  Passions  hostile  to  the  peaceful  truths 
of  literature  have  likewise  made  tremendous  inroads  in  the 
republic,  and  every  literary  vii-tue  has  been  lost !  In  "  Ca- 
lamities of  Authors  "  I  have  given  the  history  of  a  literary 
conspu-acy,  conducted  by  a  soUtary  critic,  Gilbert  Stuart, 
against  the  historian  Henrt. 

These  works  may  disgust,  by  vapid  panegyric,  or  gross  in- 
vective ;  weary  by  uniform  dulness,  or  tantalize  by  super 
ficial  knowledge.  Sometimes  merely  written  to  catch  the 
pubhc  attention,  a  malignity  is  indulged  against  authors,  to 
season  the  caustic  leaves.  A  reviewer  has  admired  those 
works  m  private,  which  he  has  condemned  in  his  official 
capacity.  But  good  sense,  good  temper,  and  good  taste,  will 
ever  form  an  estimable  journalist,  who  will  inspire  confidence, 
and  give  stability  to  his  decisions. 

To  the  lovers  of  literature  these  volumes,  when  they  have 
outlived  their  year,  are  not  unimportant.  They  constitute  a 
great  portion  of  literary  history,  and  are  indeed  the  annals  of 
the  republic. 

To  our  own  reviews,  we  must  add  the  old  foreign  journals, 
which  are  perhaps  even  more  valuable  to  the  man  of  letters. 
Of  these  the  variety  is  considerable ;  and  many  of  their  wri- 
ters are  now  known.  They  delight  our  curiosity  by  opening 
new  views,  and  light  up  in  observing  minds  many  projects  of 
works,  wanted  in  our  own  literature.  Gibbon  feasted  on 
them ;  and  while  he  turned  them  over  with  constant  pleas- 
ure, derived  accurate  notions  of  works,  which  no  student 
could  himself  have  verified ;  of  many  works  a  notion  is 
sufficient. 

The  origin  of  literary  journals  was  the  happy  project  of 


iB2  LITERARY  JOURNALS. 

Denis  de  Sallo,  a  counsellor  in  the  parliament  of  Paris. 
In  16G5  appeared  his  Journal  des  Si^avans.  He  published 
[lis  essay  in  the  name  of  the  Sieur  de  Hedouville,  his  foot- 
man !  Was  this  a  mere  stroke  of  humour,  or  designed  to 
insinuate  that  the  freedom  of  criticism  could  only  be  allowed 
to  his  lacquey  ?  The  work,  however,  met  with  so  favourable 
a  reception,  that  Sallo  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  it,  the 
following  year,  imitated  throughout  Europe,  and  his  Journal, 
at  the  same  time,  translated  into  various  languages.  But  as 
most  authors  lay  themselves  open  to  an  acute  critic,  the  an- 
imadversions of  Sallo  were  given  with  such  asperity  of  crit- 
icism, and  such  malignity  of  wit,  that  this  new  journal  excited 
loud  murmurs,  and  the  most  heart-moving  complaints.  The 
learned  had  their  plagiarisms  detected,  and  the  wit  had  his 
claims  disputed.  Sarasin  called  the  gazettes  of  this  new 
Aristarchus,  Hebdomadary  Flams  !  Billevesees  hebdom- 
adaires  !  and  Menage  having  published  a  law  book,  which 
Sallo  had  treated  with  severe  raillery,  he  entered  into  a  long 
argument  to  prove,  according  to  Justinian,  that  a  la\\'yer  is 
not  allowed  to  defame  another  lawyer,  &c. :  Senatori  male- 
dicere  non  licet,  retnaledicere  jus  fasque  est.  Others  loudly 
declaimed  against  this  new  species  of  imperial  tyranny,  and 
this  attempt  to  regulate  the  public  opinion  by  that  of  an  in- 
dividual. Sallo,  after  having  published  only  his  thu-d  volume, 
felt  the  irritated  wasps  of  literature  thronging  so  thick  about 
him,  that  he  very  gladly  abdicated  the  throne  of  criticism. 
The  journal  is  said  to  have  suffered  a  short  interruption  by 
a  remonstrance  from  the  nuncio  of  the  pope,  for  the  energy 
with  which  Sallo  had  defended  the  hberties  of  the  GaUican 
church. 

Intimidated  by  the  fate  of  Sallo,  his  successor,  the  Abbe 
Gallois,  flourished  in  a  milder  reign.  He  contented  him- 
self with  giving  the  titles  of  books,  accompanied  with  ex- 
tracts ;  and  he  was  more  useful  than  interesting.  The 
public,  who  had  been  so  much  amused  by  the  raillery  and 
Beverity  of  the  founder  of  this  dynasty  of  new  critics,  now 


LITKRARY   JOURNALS.  6^ 

mui-mured  at  the  want  of  that  salt  and  acidity  by  which  they 
had  reHshed  the  fugitive  colhition.  They  were  not  sati.-fied 
with  having  the  most  beautiful,  or  the  most  curious  parts  of 
a  new  work  brought  together  ;  they  wished  for  the  unreason- 
able entertainment  of  railing  and  raillery.  At  length  an- 
other objection  was  conjured  up  against  the  review  ;  mathe- 
maticians complained  that  they  were  neglected  to  make  room 
for  experiments  in  natural  philosophy  ;  the  historian  sickened 
over  works  of  natural  liistory ;  the  antiquaries  would  have 
nothing  but  discoveries  of  MSS.  or  fragments  of  antiquity. 
Medical  ^^•orks  were  called  for  by  one  party,  and  reprobated 
by  another.  In  a  word,  each  reader  wished  only  to  have 
accounts  of  books,  which  were  interesting  to  his  profession  or 
his  taste.  But  a  review  is  a  work  presented  to  the  pubUc  at 
large,  and  written  for  more  than  one  country.  In  spite  of 
all  these  difficulties,  this  work  was  carried  to  a  vast  extent. 
An  index  to  the  Journal  des  Sgavans  has  been  arranged  on 
a  critical  plan,  occupying  ten  vohmies  in  quarto,  which  may 
be  considered  as  a  most  useful  instrument  to  obtain  the 
science  and  literature  of  the  entire  century. 

The  next  celebrated  reviewer  is  Bayle,  who  undertook, 
in  1G84,  his  Nonvelles  de  la  Republique  des  Lettres.  He 
possessed  the  art,  acquired  by  habit,  of  reading  a  book  by 
his  fingers,  as  it  has  been  happily  expressed  ;  and  of  com- 
prising, in  concise  extracts,  a  just  notion  of  a  book,  without 
the  addition  of  irrelevant  matter.  Lively,  neat,  and  full  of 
that  attic  salt  which  gives  a  relisH  to  the  driest  disquisitions, 
for  the  first  time  the  ladies  and  all  the  beau-monde  took  an 
interest  in  the  labours  of  the  critic.  He  wreathed  the  rod 
of  criticism  with  roses.  Yet  even  Batle,  who  declared 
himself  to  be  a  reporter,  and  not  a  judge,  Bayle,  the  dis- 
creet sceptic,  could  not  long  satisfy  his  readers.  His  pane- 
gyric was  thought  somewhat  prodigal ;  his  fluency  of  style 
somewhat  too  familiar  ;  and  others  affected  not  to  relish  his 
gaiety.  In  his  latter  volumes,  to  still  the  clamour,  he  assumed 
the  cold  sobriety  of  an  historian :    and   has  bequeathed  no 


64  LITERARY  JOURNALS. 

mean  legacy  to  the  literary  world,  in  thirty-six  small  volumes 
of  criticism,  closed  in  1G87.  These  were  continued  by  Ber- 
nard, -\vith  inferior  skill,;  and  by  Basnage  more  successfully, 
in  his  Histoire  des  Ouvrages  des  S^avans. 

The  contemporary  and  the  antagonist  of  Batle  was  Le 
Clerc.  His  firm  industry  has  produced  three  Bibliotheques 
—  Universelle  et  Historique,  Olioisie,  and, Ancienne  et  Mo- 
derne  ;  forming  in  all  eighty-two  volumes,  which,  complete, 
bear  a  high  price.  Liferior  to  Bayle  in  the  more  pleasing 
talents,  he  is  perhaps  superior  in  erudition,  and  shows  great 
skill  in  analysis  :  but  his  hand  drops  no  flowers  !  Gibbon 
resorted  to  Le  Clerc's  volumes  at  his  leisure,  "  as  an  inex- 
haustible source  of  amusement  and  instruction."  Apostolo 
Zeno's  Giornale  del  Litterati  d' Italia,  from  1710  to  1733,  is 
valuable. 

Beausobre  and  L'PLvfaxt,  two  learned  Protestants, 
wrote  a  Bibliotheque  Germanique,  from  1720  to  1740,  in  50 
volumes.  Our  own  hterature  is  interested  by  the  "  Biblio- 
theque Britannique;'  written  by  some  literary  Frenchmen, 
noticed  by  La  Croze,  in  his  "  Voyage  Litteraire,"  who  desig- 
nates the  writers  in  this  most  tantalizing  manner :  "  Les 
auteurs  sont  gens  de  merite,  et  qui  entendent  tous  parfaite- 
ment  I'Anglois ;  Messrs.  S.  B.,  le  M.  D.,  et  le  savant  Mr. 
D."  Posterity  has  been  partially  let  into  the  secret:  De 
Missy  was  one  of  the  contributors,  and  Warburton  commu- 
nicated his  project  of  an  edition  of  Velleius  Paterculus. 
Tliis  useful  account  of  English  books  begins  in  1733,  and 
closes  in  1747,  Hague,  23  vols.:  to  this  we  must  add  the 
Journal  Britaimique,  m  18  vols.,  by  Dr.  Matt,  a  foreign 
physician  residing  in  London  ;  this  Journal  exhibits  a  view 
of  the  state  of  English  literature  from  1750  to  1755.  Gib- 
bon bestows  a  high  character  on  the  journalist,  who  some- 
times "  aspires  to  the  character  of  a  poet  and  a  philosopher ; 
one  of  the  last  disciples  of  the  school  of  Fontenelle." 

Maty's  son  produced  here  a  review  known  to  the  curious  ; 
his  style  and  decisions  often  discover  haste  and  heat,  with 


LITERARY  JOURNALS.  65 

some  striking  observations :  alluding  to  his  father,  in  liis 
motto,  Maty  applies  Virgil's  description  of  the  young  Ascan- 
ius,  "  Sequitur  patrem  non  passibus  acquis."  He  says  he 
only  holds  a  vionthly  conversation  with  the  public.  His 
obstinate  resolution  of  carrying  on  this  review  without  an 
associate,  has  shown  its  foUy  and  its  danger ;  for  a  fatal 
illness  produced  a  cessation,  at  once,  of  his  peiiodical  labours 
and  his  hfe. 

Other  reviews,' are  the  Memoires  de  Trevoux,  written  by 
the  Jesuits.  Their  caustic  censure  and  vivacity  of  style 
made  them  redoubtable  in  their  day;  they  did  not  even 
Bpare  their  brothers.  The  Journal  Litteraire,  printed  at 
the  Hague,  was  chiefly  composed  by  Prosper  Marchand, 
Sallengre,  and  Van  Effen,  who  were  then  young  writers. 
This  List  may  be  augmented  by  other  journals,  which  some- 
times merit  preservation  in  the  history  of  modern  litera- 
ture. 

Our  early  English  journals  notice  only  a  few  publications, 
with  little  acumen.  Of  these,  the  "  Memoirs  of  Literature," 
and  the  "  Present  State  of  the  Republic  of  Letters,"  are  the 
best.  The  Monthly  Review,  the  venerable  (now  the  de- 
ceased) mother  of  our  journals,  commenced  in  1749. 

It  is  impossible  to  form  a  literary  journal  in  a  manner  such 
as  might  be  wished  ;  it  must  be  the  work  of  many,  of  differ- 
ent tempers  and  talents.  An  individual,  however  versatile 
and  extensive  his  genius,  Avould  soon  be  exhausted.  Such  a 
regular  labour  occasioned  Bayle  a  dangerous  illness,  and 
JSIaty  fell  a  victim  to  his  Review.  A  prospect  always  ex- 
tending as  we  proceed,  the  frequent  novelty  of  the  matter, 
the  pride  of  considering  one's  self  as  the  arbiter  of  literature, 
animate  a  journalist  at  the  conmiencement  of  his  career ;  but 
the  literary  Hercules  becomes  fatigued ;  and  to  supply  his 
craving  pages  he  gives  copious  extx'acts,  till  the  journal  be 
comes  tedious,  or  fails  in  variety.  The  Al)be  Gallois  was 
frequently  diverted  from  continuing  liis  journal,  and  Eonte- 
nelle  remarks,  that  this  occupation  was  too  restrictive  for  a 

VOL.    I,  6 


66  LITERARY  JOURNALS. 

mind  so  extensive  as  his ;  the  Abb^  could  not  resist  the 
charms  of  revelling  ui  a  new  work,  and  gratifying  any  sud- 
den curiosity  which  seized  him  ;  this  interrupted  perpetually 
the  regularity  which  the  public  expects  from  a  journalist. 

The  character  of  a  perfect  journalist  would  be  only  an 
ideal  portrait ;  there  are,  however,  some  acquirements  which 
are  indispensable.  He  must  be  tolerably  acquainted  with 
the  subjects  he  treats  on  ;  no  common  acquirement !  He 
must  possess  the  literary  history  of  his  own  titiies  ;  a  science 
which,  Fontenelle  observes,  is  almost  distinct  from  any  other. 
It  is  the  result  of  an  active  curiosity,  which  takes  a  lively 
interest  in  the  tastes  and  pursuits  of  the  age,  while  it  saves 
the  journalist  from  some  ridiculous  blunders.  We  often  see 
the  mind  of  a  reviewer  half  a  century  remote  from  the  work 
reviewed.  A  fine  feeling  of  the  various  manners  of  writers, 
with  a  style  adapted  to  fix  the  attention  of  the  indolent,  and 
to  win  the  untractable,  should  be  his  study ;  but  candour  is 
the  brightest  gem  of  criticism  !  He  ought  not  to  throw  every 
thing  into  the  crucible,  nor  should  he  suffer  the  whole  to  pass 
as  if  he  ti'embled  to  touch  it.  Lampoons  and  satires  in  time 
will  lose  their  effect,  as  well  as  panegyrics.  He  must  learn 
to  resist  the  seductions  of  his  own  pen  ;  the  pretension  of 
composing  a  treatise  on  the  subject,  rather  than  on  the  book 
he  criticizes — proud  of  insinuating  that  he  gives,  in  a  dozen 
pages,  what  the  author  himself  has  not  been  able  to  perform 
in  his  volumes.  Should  he  gain  confidence  by  a  popular 
delusion,  and  by  unworthy  conduct,  he  may  chance  to  be 
mortified  by  the  pardon  or  by  the  chastisement  of  insulted 
genius.  The  most  noble  criticism  is  that  in  Avhich  the  critic 
is  not  the  antagonist  so  much  as  the  rival  of  the  author. 


reco\t:ry  of  manuscripts.  67 


RECOVERY   OF  MANUSCRIPTS. 

Our  ancient  classics  had  a  very  narrow  escape  from  total 
annihilation.  Many  have  perished  :  many  are  but  fragments  ; 
and  chance,  blind  arbiter  of  the  works  of  genius,  has  left  us 
some,  not  of  the  liighest  value  ;  wliich,  however,  have  proved 
very  useful,  as  a  test  to  show  the  pedantry  of  those  who 
adore  antiquity  not  from  true  feeUng,  but  from  traditional 
prejudice. 

We  lost  a  gi-eat  number  of  ancient  authors,  by  the  con- 
quest of  Egypt  by  the  Saracens,  Avhich  deprived  Europe  of 
the  use  of  the  papyrus.  They  could  find  no  substitute,  and 
knew  no  other  expedient  but  writing  on  parchment,  which 
became  every  day  more  scarce  and  costly.  Ignorance  and 
barbarism  unfortunately  seized  on  Roman  manuscripts,  and 
uidustriously  defaced  pages  once  imagined  to  have  been  im- 
mortal !  The  most  elegant  compositions  of  classic  Rome 
were  converted  into  the  psalms  of  a  breviary,  or  the  prayers 
of  a  missal.  Livy  and  Tacitus  "  hide  their  diminished  heads  " 
to  preserve  the  legend  of  a  saint,  and  immortal  truths  were 
converted  into  clumsy  fictions.  It  happened  that  the  most 
voluminous  authors  were  the  greatest  sufferers ;  these  were 
preferred,  because  their  volume  being  the  greatest,  most 
profitably  repaid  their  destroying  industry,  and  furnished 
ampler  scope  for  future  transcription.  A  Livy  or  a 
Diodorus  was  preferred  to  the  smaller  works  of  Cicero 
or  Horace ;  and  it  is  to  this  circumstance  that  Juvenal, 
Persius,  and  Martial  have  come  down  to  us  entire,  rather 
probably  than  to  these  pious  personages  preferring  their 
obscenities,  as  some  have  accused  them.  At  Rome,  a  part 
of  a  book  of  Livy  was  found,  between  the  lines  of  a  parch- 
ment but  half  efiaced,  on  which  they  had  substituted  a  book 
of  the  Bible  ;  and  a  recent  discovery  of  Cicero  Be  Hepiiblica, 
which  lay  concealed  under  some  monkish  writing,  shows  the 
fate  of  ancient  manuscripts 


68  RECOVERY   OF  MANUSCRIPTS. 

That  the  Monks  had  not  in  high  veneration  the  profane 
authors,  appears  by  a  facetious  anecdote.  To  read  the 
classics  was  considered  as  a  very  idle  recreation,  and  some 
held  them  in  great  horror.  To  distinguish  them  from  other 
books,  they  invented  a  disgraceful  sign :  when  a  monk  asked 
lor  a  pagan  author,  after  making  the  general  sign  they  used 
m  their  manual  and  silent  language  when  they  wanted  a 
book,  he  added  a  particular  one,  which  consisted  in  scratch- 
ing  under  his  ear,  as  a  dog,  which  feels  an  itching,  scratches 
hunself  in  that  place  with  his  paw— because,  said  they,  an 
unbehever  is  compared  to  a  dog!  In  tliis  manner  they 
expressed  an  itching  for  those  dogs  Virgil  or  Horace ! 

There  have  been  ages  when,  for  the  possession  of  a  manu- 
script, some  would  transfer  an  estate,  or  leave  in  pawn  for 
its  loan  hundi-eds  of  golden  crowns  ;  and  when  even  the  sale 
or  loan  of  a  manuscript  was  considered  of  such  importance 
as  to  have  been  solemnly  registered  by  public  acts.     Abso- 
lute as  was  Louis  XI.  he  could  not  obtain  the  MS.  of  Rasis, 
an  Arabian  writer,  from  the  hbrary  of  the  Faculty  of  Paris,' 
to  have  a  copy  made,  without  pledging  a  hundred  golden 
cro^vns  ;  and  the  president  of  his  treasury,  charged  with  this 
commission,  sold  part  of  his  plate  to  make  the  deposit.     For 
the  loan  of  a  volume  of  Avicenna,  a  Baron  offered  a  pledge 
of  ten  marks  of  silver,  which  was  refused  :   because  it  t^^ 
not  considered  equal  to  the  risk  incurred  of  losing  a  volume 
of  Avicenna  !     These  events  occuiTed  in  1471.     One  cannot 
but  smile,  at  an  anterior  period,  when  a  Countess  of  Anjou 
bought  a  favourite  book  of  homihes  for  two  hundred  sheep, 
some  skins  of  martins,  and  bushels  of  wheat  and  rye. 

In  these  times,  manuscripts  were  important  articles  of 
commerce;  they  were  excessively  scarce,  and  preserved 
with  the  utmost  care.  Usurers  themselves  considered  them 
as  precious  objects  for  pawn.  A  student  of  Pavia,  who  was 
reduced,  raised  a  new  fortune  by  leaving  in  pawn  a  manu- 
script of  a  body  of  law ;  and  a  grammarian,  who  was  ruined 
by  a  fire,  rebuilt  his  house  with  two  smaU  volumes  of  Cicero. 


RECOVERY   OF  MANUSCRIPTS.  69 

At  the  restoration  of  letters,  the  researches  of  literary  men 
were  chiefij  directed  to  this  point ;  every  part  of  Europe  and 
Greece  was  ransacked  ;  and,  the  glorious  end  considered, 
there  was  something  sublime  in  this  humble  industry,  which 
often  recovered  a  lost  author  of  antiquity,  and  gave  one 
more  classic  to  the  world.  This  occupation  was  canried  on 
with  enthusiasm,  and  a  kind  of  mania  possessed  many,  who 
exhausted  their  fortunes  in  distant  voyages  and  profuse 
prices.  In  reading  the  cori'espondence  of  the  learned 
Italians  of  these  times,  their  adventures  of  manuscript- 
hunting  are  very  amusing ;  and  their  raptures,  their  con- 
gratulations, or  at  times  their  condolence,  and  even  their 
censures,  are  all  immoderate.  The  acquisition  of  a  province 
would  not  have  given  so  much  satisfaction  as  the  discovery 
of  an  author  httle  known,  or  not  known  at  all.  "  Oh,  great 
gain  !  Oh,  unexpected  felicity  !  I  intreat  you,  my  Poggio, 
send  me  the  manuscript  as  soon  as  possible,  that  I  may  see  it 
before  I  die  ! "  exclaims  Aretino,  in  a  letter  overflowing  ^vith 
enthusiasm,  on  Poggio's  discovery  of  a  copy  of  Quintilian. 
Some  of  the  half-witted,  who  joined  in  this  great  hunt  were 
often  thi'own  out,  and  some  paid  high  for  manuscripts  not 
authentic ;  the  knave  played  on  the  bungling  amateur  of 
manuscripts,  whose  credulity  exceeded  his  purse.  But  even 
among  the  learned,  much  ill  blood  was  inflamed ;  he  who  had 
been  most  successful  in  acquiring  manuscripts  was  envied  by 
the  less  fortunate,  and  the  glory  of  possessing  a  manuscript  of 
Cicero  seemed  to  approximate  to  that  of  being  its  author.  It 
is  curious  to  observe  that  in  these  vast  importations  into  Italy 
of  manuscripts  from  Asia,  John  Aurispa,  who  brought  many 
hundreds  of  Greek  manuscripts,  laments  that  he  had  chosen 
moi'e  profane  than  sacred  Avriters  ;  which  circumstance  he  tells 
us  was  owing  to  the  Greeks,  who  would  not  so  easily  part  with 
theological  works,  but  did  not  highly  value  profane  writers ! 

These  manuscripts  were  discovered  in  the  obscurest  re- 
cesses of  monasteries  ;  they  were  not  always  imprisoned  in 
libraries,  but  rotting  in  dark  unfrequented  comers  with  rub- 


70  RECOVERY   OF  MANUSCRIPTS, 

bish.  It  required  not  less  ingenuity  to  find  out  places  where 
to  grope  m,  than  to  understand  the  value  of  the  acquisition. 
An  universal  ignorance  then  prevailed  in  the  knovvled-e  of 
ancient  writers  A  scholar  of  those  times  gave  the  first°rank 
among  he  Latin  writers  to  one  Valerius,  whether  he  meant 
JMartial  or  Maximus  is  uncertain ;  he  placed  Plato  and.Tull7 
among  the  poets,  and  imagined  that  Ennius  and  Statins  were 
contemporanes.  A  library  of  six  hundred  volumes  was  then 
considered  as  an  extraordinary  coUection. 

Among  those  whose  lives  were  devoted  to  this  purpose, 
Poggio  the  Florentine  stands  distinguished;  but  he  com- 
plains  that  his  zeal  was  not  assisted  by  the  great.  He  found 
under  a  heap  of  rubbish  in  a  decayed  cof^r,  in  a  ZlrTe- 
onging  to  the  monastery  of  St.  Gailo,  the  work  of  Quintilian. 
He  IS  mdignant  at  its  forlorn  situation;  at  least,  he  cries,  it 
should  have  been  preserved  in  the  library  of  the  monks  ;  but 
I  tound  It  in  teterrimo  quodam  et  ohscuro  carcere-^nd  to  his 
great  joy  drew  it  out  of  its  grave !  The  monks  have  been 
comphn,ented  as  the  preservers  of  literature,  but  by  facts 
like   he  present,  their  real  affection  may  be  doubted.  ' 

Ihe  most  valuable  copy  of  Tacitus,  of  whom  so  much  is 
wanting,  was  likewise  discovered  in  a  monastery  of  West- 
phalia.    It  IS  a  curious  circumstance  in  literary  history,  that 

emperor  of  that  name  had  copies  of  the  works  of  his  illustrious 
ancestor  placed  in  all  the  libraries  of  the  empire,  and  eve; 
>ear  had  ten  copies  transcribed;  but  the  Roman  libraries 
seem  to  have  been  aU  destroyed,  and  the  imperial  protectila 
availed  nothing  against  the  teeth  of  time. 

The  original  manuscript  of  Justinian's  Pandects  was  dis- 
covered by  the  Pisans,  when  they  took  a  city  in  Calabria  • 
hat  vast  code  of  laws  had  been  in  a  manner  Lkn^  f  1' 

L  P  r  1  r!  'T^'^'  ^'^^  ^"™"^  ^-'^  --  brought 
If  1  t""  ^''''  ""^  ^"^^"  b^  ^he  Florentines,  ^a^ 
transferred  to  Florence,  where  it  is  still  preserved 

It  sometimes  happened  that  manuscripts  were  discovered 


reco\t:ry  of  manuscripts.  71 

in  the  last  agonies  of  existence.  Papirius  Masson  found,  in 
the  house  of  a  bookbinder  of  Lyons,  the  works  of  Agobart ; 
the  mechanic  was  on  the  point  of  using  the  manuscripts  to 
line  the  covers  of  his  books.  A  page  of  the  second  decade 
of  Livy,  it  is  said,  was  found  by  a  man  of  letters  in  the 
parchment  of  his  battledore,  while  he  was  amusing  himself  in 
the  country.  He  hastened  to  the  maker  of  the  battledore — 
but  arrived  too  late !  The  man  had  finished  the  last  page 
of  Livy — about  a  week  before. 

INIany  works  have  undoubtedly  perished  in  this  manuscript 
state.  By  a  petition  of  Dr.  Dee  to  Queen  Mary,  in  the 
Cotton  library,  it  appears  that  Cicero's  treatise  De  Republicd 
was  once  extant  in  this  country.  Huet  observes  that  Petro- 
nius  was  probably  entire  in  the  days  of  John  of  Salisbury, 
who  quotes  fragments,  not  now  to  be  found  in  the  remains  of 
the  Roman  bard.  Raimond  Soranzo,  a  lawyer  in  the  papal 
court,  possessed  two  books  of  Cicero  "  on  Glory,"  which  he 
presented  to  Petrarch,  who  lent  them  to  a  poor  aged  man  of 
letters,  formerly  his  preceptor.  Urged  by  extreme  want,  the 
old  man  paAvned  them,  and  returning  home  died  suddenly 
without  having  revealed  where  he  had  left  them.  They 
have  never  been  recovered.  Petrarch  speaks  of  them  with 
ecstasy,  and  tells  us  that  he  had  studied  them  perpetually. 
Two  centuries  afterwards,  this  treatise  on  Glory  by  Cicero 
was  mentioned  in  a  catalogue  of  books  bequeathed  to  a 
monastery  of  nuns,  but  when  inquired  after  was  missing.  It 
was  supposed  that  Petrus  Alcyonius,  physician  to  that  house- 
hold, purloined  it,  and  after  transcribing  as  much  of  it  as  he 
could  into  his  own  writings,  had  destroyed  the  original.  Al- 
cyonius, in  his  book  De  Exilio,  the  critics  observed,  had 
many  splendid  passages  which  stood  isolated  in  his  work, 
and  were  quite  above  his  genius.  The  beggar,  or  in  this 
case  the  thief,  was  detected  by  mending  his  rags  with  patches 
of  purple  and  gold. 

In  this  age  of  manuscript,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  that 
when  a  man  of  letters  accidentally  obtained  an   unknown 


72  KECOVERY   OF   MANUSCRIPTS. 

work,  he  did  not  make  the  fairest  use  of  it,  but  cautiously 
concealed  it  from  his  contemporaries.     Leonard  Aretino,  a 
distinguished  scholar  at  the  dawn  of  modern  literature,  having 
ound  a  Greek  manuscript  of  Procopius  De  Bella  Gothil 
translated  it  into  Latin,  and  published  the  work;  but  con- 
ceahng  the  author's  name,  it  passed  as  his  own,  till  another 
manuscript  of  the  same  work  being  dug  out  of  its  gi-ave,  the 
fraud  of  Aretmo  was  apparent.    Barbosa,  a  bishop  of  Ugento, 
m  1649,  has  printed  among  his  works  a  treatise,  obtained  by 
one  of  Ins  domestics  bringing  in  a  fish  roUed  in  a  leaf  of  writ- 
ten  paper,  which  his  curiosity  led  him  to  examine.     He  was 
sufficiently  interested  to  run  out  and  search  the  fish  market, 
^U  he  found  the  manuscript  out  of  which  it  had  been  torn. 
He  published  it,  under  the  title  De  Officio  Episcopi.     Ma- 
chiaveUi  acted  more  adroitly  in  a  similar  case;  a  manuscript 
of  the  Apophthegms   of  the  Ancients   by  Plutarch  havin^ 
fallen  into  his  hands,  he  selected  those  which  pleased  hinC 
and  put  them  into  the  mouth  of  his  hero  Castrucio  Castri- 


cam. 


In  more  recent  times,  we  might  collect  many  curious  anec- 
dotes concerning  manuscripts.  Sir  Robert  Cotton  one  day 
at  his  tailor's  discovered  that  the  man  was  holding  in  his 
hand  ready  to  cut  up  for  measures-an  original  Magna 
Charta,  with  all  its  appendages  of  seals  and  signatures.  This 
anecdote  is  told  by  Colomies,  who  long  resided  in  this  coun- 
ry ;  and  an  original  Magna  Charta  is  preserved  in  the  Cot- 
tonian  library  exhibitmg  marks  of  dilapidation. 

Cardmal  Granvelle  left  behind  hhn  several  chests  fiUed 
Mith  a  prodigious  quantity  of  letters  written  in  different  lan- 
guages, commented,  noted,  and  underlined  by  his  own  hand. 
These  curious  manuscripts,  after  his  death,  were  left  in  a 
garret  to  the  mercy  of  the  ram  and  the  rats.  Five  or  six 
of  hese  chests  the  steward  sold  to  the  gi-ocers.  It  was  then 
that  a  discovery  was  made  of  this  treasure.  Several  learned 
men  occupied  themselves  in  coUecting  sufficient  of  these  hter- 
ary  rehcs  to  form  eighty  thick  folios,  consisting  of  original 


RKCOVERY   OF   MANUSCRIPTS.  73 

letters  by  all  the  crowned  heads  in  Europe,  with  ipstructions 
for  ambassadors,  and  other  state-papers. 

A  valuable  secret  history  by  Sir  George  Mackenzie,  the 
king's  advocate  in  Scotland,  was  rescued  from  a  mass  of 
waste  paper  sold  to  a  grocer,  who  had  the  good  sense  to  dis- 
criminate it,  and  communicated  this  curious  memorial  to  Dr. 
M'Crie.  The  original,  in  the  handwriting  of  its  author,  has 
been  deposited  in  the  Advocate's  Library.  There  is  an 
hiatus,  which  contained  the  history  of  six  years.  This  work 
excited  inquiry  after  the  rest  of  the  MSS.,  which  were  found 
to  be  nothing  more  than  the  sweepings  of  an  attorney's  office. 

Montaigne's  Journal  of  his  Travels  into  Italy  has  been  but 
recently  published.  A  prebendary  of  Perigord,  travelling 
through  tliis  province  to  make  researches  relative  to  its  his- 
tory, arrived  at  the  ancient  chateau  of  Montaigne,  in  posses- 
sion of  a  descendant  of  this  great  man.  He  inquired  for  the 
archives,  if  there  had  been  any.  He  was  shown  an  old 
worm-eaten  coffer,  which  had  long  held  papers  untouched  by 
the  incurious  generations  of  Montaigne.  Stifled  in  clouds  of 
dust,  he  drew  out  the  original  manuscript  of  the  travels  of 
Montaigne.  Two  thirds  of  the  work  are  in  the  handwriting 
of  Montaigne,  and  the  rest  is  written  by  a  servant,  who  al- 
ways speaks  of  his  master  in  the  tliird  person.  But  he  must 
have  written  what  Montaigne  dictated,  as  the  expressions 
and  the  egotisms  are  all  Montaigne's.  The  bad  writing  and 
orthography  made  it  almost  unintelligible.  They  confirmed 
Montaigne's  own  observation,  that  he  was  very  negligent  in 
the  correction  of  his  works. 

Our  ancestors  were  great  hiders  of  manuscripts  :  Dr.  Dee's 
singular  MSS.  were  found  in  the  secret  drawer  of  a  chest, 
which  had  passed  through  many  hands  undiscovered  ;  and 
that  vast  collection  of  state-papers  of  Thurloe's,  the  secretary 
of  Cromwell,  which  formed  about  seventy  volumes  in  the 
original  manuscripts,  accidentally  fell  out  of  the  false  ceiling 
of  some  chambers  in  Lincoln's-Imi. 

A  considerable  portion  of  Lady  Mary  "Wortley  Montagu's 


74  SKETCHES    OF   CRITICISM. 

Letters  I  discovered  in  the  hands  of  an  attorney :  famUy- 
papers  are  often  consigned  to  offices  of  lawyers,  where  many 
vahiable  manuscripts  are  buried.  Posthumous  publications 
of  this  kind  are  too  frequently  made  from  sordid  motives: 
discernment  and  taste  would  only  be  detrimental  to  the  views 
of  bulky  publishers. 


SKETCHES   OF   CRITICISM. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  some  satisfaction  to  show  the  young 
writer,  tliat  the  most  celebrated  ancients  have  been  as  rudely 
subjected  to  the  tyranny  of  criticism  as  the  moderns.  De- 
traction has  ever  poured  the  "  waters  of  bitterness." 

It  was  given  out,  that  Homer  had  stolen  from  anterior 
poets  whatever  was  most  remarkable  in  the  Iliad  and  Odys- 
sey. Naucrates  even  points  out  the  source  in  the  library  at 
Memplds  in  a  temple  of  Vulcan,  which  according  to  him  the 
blind  bard  completely  pillaged.  Undoubtedly  there  were 
good  poets  before  Homer ;  how  absurd  to  conceive  that  an 
elaborate  poem  could  be  the  first !  We  have  mdeed  accounts 
of  anterior  poets,  and  apparently  of  epics,  before  Homer ; 
^lian  notices  Syagrus,  who  composed  a  poem  on  the  Siege 
of  Troy ;  and  Suidas  the  poem  of  Corinnus,  from  which  it  is 
said  Homer  gi-eatly  borrowed.  Why  did  Plato  so  severely 
condemn  the  great  bard,  and  imitate  him  ? 

Sophocles  was  brought  to  trial  by  his  children  as  a  lunatic ; 
and  some,  who  censured  the  inequalities  of  this  poet,  have 
also  condemned  the  vanity  of  Pindar ;  the  rough  verses  of 
^schylus  ;  and  Euripides,  for  the  conduct  of  his  plots. 

Socrates,  considered  as  the  wisest  and  the  most  moral  of 
men,  Cicero  treated  as  an  usurer,  and  the  pedant  Athenteus 
as  illiterate ;  the  latter  points  out  as  a  Socratic  folly  our  phi- 
losopher disserting  on  the  nature  of  justice  before  his  judges, 
who  were  so  many  thieves.     The  malignant  buffoonery  of 


SKETCHES   OF   CRITICISM.  75 

Aristophanes  treats  him  much  worse  ;  but  he,  as  Jortin  says, 
was  a  great  wit,  but  a  great  rascal. 

Plato — who  has  been  called,  by  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
the  Moses  of  Athens  ;  the  philosopher  of  the  Christians,  by 
Arnobius ;  and  the  god  of  philosophers,  by  Cicero — Athe- 
naeus  accuses  of  envy ;  Theopompus,  of  lying ;  Suidas,  of 
avarice  ;  Aulus  Gellius,  of  robbery ;  Porphyry,  of  incon- 
tinence ;   and   Aristophanes,  of  impiety. 

Aristotle,  whose  industry  composed  more  than  four  hun- 
dred volumes,  has  not  been  less  spared  by  the  critics ;  Diog- 
enes Laertius,  Cicero,  and  Plutarch,  have  forgotten  nothing 
that  can  tend  to  show  his  ignorance,  his  ambition,  and  hia 
vanity. 

It  has  been  said  that  Plato  was  so  envious  of  the  celebrity 
of  Democritus,  that  he  proposed  burning  all  his  works ;  but 
that  Amydis  and  Clinias  prevented  it,  by  remonstrating  that 
there  were  copies  of  them  everywhere  ;  and  Aristotle  was 
agitated  by  the  same  passion  against  all  the  philosophers  his 
predecessors. 

Virgil  is  destitute  of  invention,  if  we  are  to  give  credit  to 
Pliny,  Carbilius,  and  Seneca.  Caligula  has  absolutely  de- 
nied him  even  mediocrity  ;  Herennus  has  marked  his  faults ; 
and  Perilius  Faustinus  has  furnished  a  thick  volume  with 
his  plagiarisms.  Even  the  author  of  his  apology  has  con- 
fessed, that  he  has  stolen  from  Homer  his  greatest  beauties ; 
from  ApoUonius  Rhodius,  many  of  his  pathetic  passages ; 
from  Nicander,  hints  for  his  Georgics  ;  and  this  does  not  ter- 
minate the  catalogue. 

Horace  censures  the  coarse  humour  of  Plautus ;  and 
Horace,  in  his  turn,  has  been  blamed  for  the  free  use  he 
made  of  the  Greek  minor  poets. 

The  majority  of  the  critics  regard  Pliny's  Natural  History 
only  as  a  heap  of  fables  ;  and  Pliny  cannot  bear  with  Diodo- 
rus  and  Vopiscus ;  and  in  one  comprehensive  criticism,  treats 
all  the  historians  as  narrators  of  liibles. 

Livy  has  been  reproached  for  his  aversion  to  the  Gauls ; 


7g  SKETCHES    OF    CRITKHSM. 

Dion,  for  his  hatred  of  the  republic ;  Velleius  Paterculus, 
for  speaking  too  kindly  of  the  vices  of  Tiberius  ;  and  Herod- 
otus and  Plutarch,  for  their  excessive  partiality  to  their  own 
country :  while  the  latter  has  written  an  entire  treatise  on 
the  malignity  of  Herodotus.     Xenophon  and  Qumtus  Curtius 
have  been  considered  rather  as  novelists  than  historians  ;  and 
Tacitus  has  been  censured  for  liis  audacity  in  pretending  to 
discover  the  political   springs  and  secret  causes  of  events. 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  has  made  an  elaborate  attack  on 
Thucydides  for  the  unskilful  choice  of  his  subject,  and  his 
manner  of  treating  it.     Dionysius  would  have  nothing  written 
but  what  tended  to  the  glory  of  his  country  and  the  pleasure 
of  the  reader— as  if  history  were  a  song !  adds  Hobbes,  who 
also  shows  a  personal  motive  in  this  attack.     The  same  Dio- 
nysius severely  criticizes  the  style  of  Xenophon,  who,  he 
says,  in  attempting  to  elevate  his  style,  shows  himself  inca- 
pable of    supporting   it.      Polybius   has   been  blamed  for 
his  frequent  introduction   of  reflections,  which  interrupt  the 
thread  of  his   narrative  ;  and  Sallust  has  been  blamed  by 
Cato  for  indulging  his  own  panvate  passions,  and  studiously 
concealmg  many  of  the  glorious   actions  of  Cicero.      The 
Jewish  historian  Josephus  is  accused  of  not  having  designed 
his  history  for  his  own  people  so  much  as  for  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  whom  he  takes  the  utmost  care  never  to  offend. 
Josephus  assumes  a  Roman  name,  Flavins  ;  and  considering 
his  nation  as  entirely  subjugated,  to  make  them  appear  dig- 
nified to  their  conquerors,  alters  what  he  himself  calls  the 
Holy  hooks.     It  is  well  known  how  widely  he  differs  from  the 
S3i-iptural  accounts.     Some  have  said  of  Cicero,  that  there 
is  no  connection,  and  to  adopt  their  own  figures,  no  blood  and 
nerves,  m  what  his  admirers  so  warmly  extol.     Cold  in  his 
extemporaneous  effusions,  artificial  in  his   exordiums,  trifling 
in  his  strained  raillery,  and  tiresome  in  his  digressions.     This 
is  saying  a  good  deal  about  Cicero. 

QuintiUan  does  not  spare  Seneca  ;  and  Demosthenes,  called 
by  Gcero  the  prince  of  orators,  has,  according  to  Hermippus, 


SKETCHES   OF   CRITICISM.  77 

more  of  art  than  of  nature.     To  Demades,  his  orations  ap- 
pear too  much   laboured  ;  others  have  thought  him  too  dry 
and,  if  we  may  trust  ^scliines,  his  language  is  by  no  means 
pure. 

The  Attic  Nights  of  Aulus  Gellius,  and  the  Deipnosophists 
of  Athenaius,  while  they  have  been  extolled  by  one  party, 
have  been  degraded  by  another.  They  have  been  considered 
as  botchers  of  rags  and  remnants  ;  their  diligence  has  not 
been  accompanied  by  judgment ;  and  their  taste  inclined 
more  to  the  frivolous  than  to  the  useful.  Compilers,  indeed, 
are  liable  to  a  hard  fate,  for  httle  distinction  is  made  in  their 
ranks ;  a  disagreeable  situation,  in  wliich  honest  Burton 
seems  to  have  been  placed ;  for  he  says  of  his  work,  that 
some  will  cry  out,  "  This  is  a  thinge  of  meere  Industrie ;  a 
collection  without  wit  or  invention  ;  a  very  toy  !  So  men 
are  valued ;  their  labours  vilified  by  fellowes  of  no  worth 
themselves,  as  things  of  nought :  Who  could  not  have  done  as 
much  ?     Some  understande  too  little,  and  some  too  much." 

Should  we  proceed  with  this  list  to  our  own  country,  and 
to-  our  own  times,  it  might  be  curiously  augmented,  and  show 
the  world  what  men  the  Critics  are  !  but,  perhaps,  enough 
has  been  said  to  soothe  irritated  genius,  and  to  shame  fastid- 
ious criticism.  "  I  would  beg  the  critics  to  remember,"  the 
Earl  of  Roscommon  writes,  in  his  preface  to  Horace's  Art 
of  Poetry,  "  that  Horace  owed  his  favour  and  his  fortune  to 
the  character  given  of  him  by  Virgil  and  Varus  ;  that  Fun- 
danius  and  PoUio  are  still  valued  by  what  Horace  says  of 
them  ;  and  that,  in  their  golden  age,  there  was  a  good  under- 
standing among  the  ingenious  ;  and  those  who  were  the  most 
esteemed,  were  the  best  natured." 


78  THE  PERSECUTED   LEARNED. 


THE   PERSECUTED   LEARNED. 

Those  who  have  laboured  most  zealously  to  instruct  man- 
kind have  been  those  who  have  suffered  most  from  ignorance  ; 
and  the  discoverers  of  new  arts  and  sciences  have  hardly 
ever  lived  to  see  them  accepted  by  the  world.  With  a  noble 
perception  of  his  own  genius,  Lord  Bacon,  in  his  prophetic 
Will,  thus  expresses  himself :  "  For  my  name  and  memory, 
I  leave  it  to  men's  charitable  speeches,  and  to  foreign  na- 
tions, and  the  next  ages."  Before  the  times  of  Galileo  and 
Harvey  the  world  believed  in  the  stagnation  of  the  blood, 
and  the  diurnal  immovability  of  the  earth  ;  and  for  denying 
these  the  one  was  persecuted  and  the  other  ridiculed. 

The  intelligence  and  the  virtue  of  Socrates  were  punished 
with  death.  Anaxagoras,  Avhen  he  attempted  to  propagate  a 
just  notion  of  the  Supreme  Being,  was  dragged  to  prison. 
Aj-istotle,  after  a  long  series  of  persecution,  swallowed  poison. 
Heraclitus,  tormented  by  his  countrymen,  broke  off  all  inter- 
course with  men.  The .  great  geometricians  and  chemists,  as 
Gerbert,  Roger  Bacon,  and  Cornelius  Agrippa,  were  abhorred 
as  magicians.  Pope  Gerbert,  as  Bishop  Otho  gravely  re- 
lates, obtained  the  pontificate  by  having  given  himself  up  en- 
tirely to  the  devil :  others  suspected  him,  too,  of  holding  an 
intercourse  with  demons  ;  but  this  was  indeed  a  devilish 
age  ! 

Virgilius,  Bishop  of  Saltzburg,  having  asserted  that  there 
existed  antipodes,  the  Archbishop  of  Mentz  declared  him  a 
heretic ;  and  the  Abbot  Trithemius,  who  was  Ibnd  of  im- 
proving stenography,  or  the  art  of  secret  writing,  having 
published  several  curious  works  on  this  subject,  they  were 
condemned,  as  works  full  of  diabolical  mysteries  ;  and 
Frederic  II.,  Elector  Palatine,  ordered  Trithemius's  orig- 
inal work,  v/hich  was  in  his   hbrary,  to  be  publicly  burnt. 

Galileo  was  condemned  at  Rome  publicly  to  disavow  sen- 
timents, the  truth  of  which  must  have  been  to  him  abundant- 


THE   PERSECUTED   LEARNED.  79 

\y  manifest.  "  Are  these  then  my  judges  ?  "  he  exchiimed 
in  retiring  from  the  inquisitors,  whose  ignorance  astonished 
him.  He  was  imprisoned,  and  visited  by  Milton,  who  tells 
us,  he  was  then  poor  and  old.  The  confessor  of  his  widow, 
taking  advantage  of  her  piety,  perused  the  MSS.  of  this  great 
philosopher,  mid  destroyed  such  as  in  his  Judgment  were  not 
fit  to  be  known  to  the  world  ! 

Gabriel  Naude,  in  his  apology  for  those  gi-eat  men  >\  ho 
have  been  accused  of  magic,  has  recorded  a  melancholy 
number  of  the  most  eminent  scholars,  who  have  found,  that 
to  have  been  successful  in  their  studies  was  a  success  which 
harassed  them  with  continual  persecution — a  prison  or  a 
grave  ! 

Cornelius  Agrippa  was  compelled  to  fly  his  countn^  and 
the  enjoyment  of  a  large  income,  merely  for  having  dis})layed 
a  few  philosophical  experiments,  which  now  every  school-boy 
can  perform  ;  but  more  particularly  having  attacked  the  then 
prevailing  opinion,  that  St.  Anne  had  three  husbands,  he  was 
obhged  to  fly  from  place  to  place.  The  people  beheld  him 
as  an  object  of  horror ;  and  when  he  walked  he  found  the 
streets  empty  at  his  approach. 

In  those  times  it  was  a  common  opinion  to  suspect  evei-y 
great  man  of  an  intercourse  with  some  familiar  spirit.  The 
favourite  black  dog  of  Agrippa  was  supposed  to  be  a  demon. 
When  Urban  Grandier,  another  victim  to  the  age,  was  led  to 
the  stake,  a  large  fly  settled  on  his  head :  a  monk,  who  had 
heard  that  Beelzebub  signifies  in  Hebrew  the  God  of  Flies, 
reported  that  he  saw  this  spirit  come  to  take  possession  of 
him.  M.  de  Langier,  a  French  minister,  who  employed 
many  spies,  Avas  frequently  accused  of  diabolical  communi- 
cation. Sixtus  the  Fifth,  INIarechal  Faber,  Koger  Bacon, 
Cajsar  Borgia,  his  son  Alexander  VI.,  and  others,  like 
Socrates,  had  their  diabolical  attendant. 

Cardan  was  believed  to  be  a  magician.  An  able  naturalist, 
who  happened  to  know  something  of  the  arcana  of  nature, 
was    immediately    suspected    of  magic.     Even   tlie   kanu-d 


80  THE   PERSECUTED   LEARNED 

themselves,  who  had  not  applied  to  natural  philosophy,  seeni 
to  have  acted  with  the  same  feelings  as  the  most  ignorant ; 
for  when  Albert,  usually  called  the  Great,  an  epithet  it  has 
been  said  that  he  derived  from  his  name  De  Groot^  con- 
structed a  curious  piece  of  mechanism,  which  sent  forth 
distinct  vocal  sounds,  Thomas  Aquinas  was  so  much  terri- 
fied at  it,  that  he  struck-  it  with  his  staff,  and  to  the  mor- 
tification of  Albert,  anniliilated  the  curious  labour  of  thirty 
years ! 

Petrarch  was  less  desirous  of  the  laurel  for  the  honour, 
than  for  the  hope  of  being  sheltered  by  it  from  the  thunder 
of  the  priests,  by  whom  both  he  and  his  brother  poets  were 
continually  threatened.  They  could  not  imagine  a  poet, 
without  supposing  him  to  hold  an  intercourse  with  some 
demon.  This  was,  as  Abbe  Resnel  observes,  having  a  most 
exalted  idea  of  poetry,  though  a  very  bad  one  of  poets.  An 
anti-poetic  Dominican  was  notorious  for  persecuting  all  verse- 
makers  ;  whose  power  he  attributed  to  the  effects  of  heresy 
and  magic.  The  lights  of  philosophy  have  dispersed  all 
these  accusations  of  magic,  and  have  shown  a  dreadful  chain 
of  perjuries  and  conspiracies. 

Descartes  was  horribly  persecuted  in  Holland,  when  he 
first  published  his  opinions.  Voetius,  a  bigot  of  great  in- 
fluence at  Utrecht,  accused  him  of  atheism,  and  had  even 
projected  in  his  mind  to  have  this  philosopher  burnt  at 
Utrecht  in  an  extraordinary  fire,  which,  kindled  on  an 
eminence,  might  be  observed  by  the  seven  provinces.  Mr. 
Hallam  has  observed,  that  "  the  ordeal  of  fire  was  the  great 
purifier  of  books  and  men."  This  persecution  of  science  and 
genius  lasted  till  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

"  If  the  metaphysician  stood  a  chance  of  being  burnt  as  a 
heretic,  the  natural  philosopher  was  not  in  less  jeopai-dy  as  a 
magician,"  is  an  observation  of  the  same  writer,  which  sums 
up  the  whole. 


POVERTY    OF   THE   LEARNED.  81 


POVERTY   OF   THE   LEARNED. 

Fortune  has  rarely  condescended  to  be  the  companion  of 
genius:  others  find  a  hundred  by-roads  to  her  palace ;  there 
is  but  one  open,  and  that  a  very  indifferent  one,  for  men  of 
letters.  Were  we  to  erect  an  asylum  for  venerable  genius, 
as  we  do  for  tiie  brave  and  the  helpless  part  of  our  citizens, 
it  might  be  inscribed,  "  An  Hospital  fijr  Incurables  !  "  When 
even  Fame  will  not  protect  the  man  of  genius  from  Famine, 
Charity  ought.  Nor  should  such  an  act  be  considered  as  a 
debt  incurred  by  the  helpless  member,  but  a  just  tribute  we 
pay  in  his  person  to  Genius  itself.  Even  in  these  enlightened 
times,  many  have  lived  in  obscurity,  while  their  reputation 
was  widely  spread,  and  have  perished  in  poverty,  while  their 
works  were  enriching  the  booksellers. 

Of  the  heroes  of  modem  literature  the  accounts  are  as 
copious  as  they  are  sorrowful. 

Xylander  sold  liis  notes  on  Dion  Cassius  for  a  dinner.  He 
tells  us  that  at  the  age  of  eighteen  he  studied  to  acquire 
glory,  but  at  twenty-five  he  studied  to  get  bread. 

Cervantes,  the  immortal  genius  of  Spain,  is  supposed  to 
have  wanted  food  ;  Ciunoens,  the  solitary  pride  of  Portugal, 
deprived  of  the  necessaries  of  hfe,  perished  in  an  hospital  at 
Lisbon.  This  fact  has  been  accidentally  preserved  in  an 
entry  in  a  copy  of  the  first  edition  of  the  Lusiad,  in  the 
possession  of  Lord  Holland.  It  is  a  note,  written  by  a  friar 
who  must  have  been  a  witness  of  the  dying  scene  of  the  poet, 
and  probably  received  the  volume  which  now  preserves  the 
sad  niBmorial,  and  which  recalled  it  to  his  mind,  from  the 
hands  of  the  unhappy  poet :  "  What  a  lamentable  thing  to 
see  so  great  a  genius  so  ill  rewarded  !  I  saw  him  die  in  an 
hospital  in  Lisbon,  without  having  a  sheet  or  shroud,  una 
sauana,  to  cover  him,  after  having  triumphed  in  the  East 
Indies,  and  sailed  5500  leagues  !  What  good  advice  for 
those  who  weary  themselves  night  and  day  in  study  without 

VOL.    I.  6 


y2  POVERTY  OF  THE  LEARNED. 

profit !  "  Camoens,  when  some  fidalgo  complained  that  he 
had  not  performed  his  promise  in  writing  some  verses  for 
him,  replied,  "  When  I  wrote  verses  I  was  young,  had  suf- 
licient  food,  was  a  lover,  and  beloved  by  many  fiiends  and 
by  the  ladies  ;  then  I  felt  poetical  ardour :  now  I  have  no 
spirits,  no  peace  of  mind.  See  there  ray  Javanese,  who  asks 
me  for  two  pieces  to  purchase  firing,  and  I  have  them  not  to 
give  him."  The  Portuguese,  after  his  death,  bestowed  on 
the  man  of  genius  they  had  starved,  the  appellation  of  Great ! 
Vondel,  the  Dutch  Shakspeare,  after  composing  a  number 
of  popular  tragedies,  lived  in  great  poverty,  and  died  at 
ninety  years  of  age ;  then  he  had  his  cotfin  carried  by 
fourteen  poets,  who  without  his  genius  probably  partook 
of  his  wretchedness. 

The  great  Tasso  was  reduced  to  such  a  dilemma  that  he 
was  obliged  to  borrow  a  ci"o\vn  for  a  week's  sub;-istence.  He 
alludes  to  his  distress  when,  entreating  his  cat  to  assist  him, 
during  the  night,  with  the  lustre  of  her  eyes — "  Non  avendo 
candele  per  iscrivere  i  suoi  versi  !  "  having  no  candle  to  see 
to  write  his  verses. 

When  the  liberality  of  Alphonso  enabled  Ariosto  to  build 
a  small  house,  it  seems  that  it  was  but  ill  furnished.  When 
told  that  such  a  building  was  not  fit  for  one  who  had  raised 
so  many  fine  palaces  in  his  writings,  he  answered,  that  the 
structure  of  words  and  that  of  stones  was  not  the  same  thing. 
"  Che  porvi  le  pietre,  e  porvi  le  parole,  non  e  il  medesimo  I" 
At  Ferrara  this  house  is  stiU  shown.  "  Parva  sed  apta,"  he 
calls  it,  but  exults  that  it  was  paid  for  with  his  o^vn  money. 
This  was  in  a  moment  of  good  humour,  which  he  did  not 
always  enjoy ;  for  in  his  Satires  he  bitterly  complains  of  the 
bondage  of  dependence  and  poverty.  Little  thought  the  poet 
that  the  commune  would  order  this  small  house  to  be  pur- 
chased with  their  own  funds,  that  it  might  be  dedicated  to 
his  immortal  memory. 

Cardinal  Bentivoglio,  the  ornament  of  Italy  and  of  litera- 
ture, languished,  in  his  old  age,  in  the  most  distressful  pov- 


POVERTY  OF  THE  LEARNED.  83 

ertj ;  and  having  sold  his  palace  to  satisfy  his  creditors,  left 
nothing  behind  him  but  his  reputation.  The  learned  I'om- 
ponius  Lajtus  lived  in  such  a  state  of  poverty,  that  his  friend 
Platma,  who  wrote  the  lives  of  the  popes,  and  also  a  book  of 
cookery,  introduces  him  into  the  cookery  book  by  a  facetious 
observation,  that  "  If  Pomponius  La^tus  should  be  robbed  of 
a  couple  of  eggs,  he  would  not  have  wheremtlial  to  purchase 
two  other  eggs."  The  history  of  Aldrovandus  is  noble  and 
pathetic ;  having  expended  a  large  fortune  in  fonning  his 
collections  of  natural  history,  and  employing  the  first  artists 
in  Europe,  he  was  suffered  to  die  in  the  hospital  of  that  city. 
to  whose  fame  he  had  eminently  contributed. 

Du  Ryer,  a  celebrated  French  poet,  was  constrained  to 
write  with  rapidity,  and  to  live  in  the  cottage  of  an  obscure 
village.  His  bookseller  bought  his  heroic  verses  for  one 
hundred  sols  the  hundred  lines,  and  the  smaller  ones  for 
fifty  sols.  What  an  interesting  picture  has  a  contemporary 
given  of  a  visit  to  this  poor  and  ingenious  author  !  "  On  a 
fine  summer  day  we  went  to  him,  at  some  distance  from 
town.  He  received  us  with  joy,  talked  to  us  of  his  numeroiis 
projects,  and  showed  us  several  of  his  works.  But  what 
more  interested  us  was,  that,  though  dreading  to  expose  to 
us  his  poverty,  he  contrived  to  offer  some  refreshments.  We 
seated  ourselves  under  a  wide  oak,  the  table-cloth  was  spread 
on  the  grass,  liis  wife  brought  us  some  milk,  Avith  fresh  water 
and  brown  bread,  and  he  picked  a  basket  of  cherries.  He 
welcomed  us  Avith  gaiety,  but  we  could  not  take  leave  of  this 
amiable  man,  now  grown  old,  without  tears,  to  see  him  so  ill 
treated  by  fortune,  and  to  have  nothing  left  but  literary 
honour !  " 

Vaugelas,  the  most  polished  writer  of  the  French  language, 
who  devoted  thu'ty  years  to  his  translation  of  Quintus  Cur- 
tius,  (a  circumstance  which  modern  translators  can  have  no 
conception  of,)  died  possessed  of  nothing  valuable  but  his 
precious  manuscripts.  This  ingenious  scholar  left  his  corpse 
to  the  surgeons,  for  the  benefit  of  his  creditors  ! 


84  POVERTY  OF  THE  LEARNED.      ^ 

Louis  the  Fourteenth  honoured  Racine  and  :^ileau  with 
a  private  monthly  audience.  One  day  the  king  asked  what 
there  was  new  m  the  literary  world.  Racine  answered,  that 
he  had  seen  a  melancholy  spectacle  in  the  house  of  Conieille, 
whom  he  found  dying,  deprived  even  of  a  little  broth !  The 
king  preserved  a  profound  silence ;  and  sent  the  dying  poet 
a  sum  of  money. 

Dryden,  for  less  than  three  hundred  pounds,  sold  Tonson 
ten  thousand  verses,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  agreement. 

Purchas,  who,  in  the  reign  of  our  first  James,  had  spent 
his  life  in  compilmg  his  delation  of  the  World,  when  he  o-ave 
it  to  the  public,  for  the  reward  of  his  labours  was  tlu-ownlnto 
prison,  at  the  suit  of  his  printer.  Yet  this  was  the  book 
which,  he  informs  Charies  I.  in  liis  dedication,  his  father  read 
every  night  with  great  profit  and  satisfaction. 

The  Marquis  of  AYorcester,  in  a  petition  to  pariiament,  in 
the  reign  of  Charies  IL,  offered  to  publish  the  hundred  pro- 
cesses and  machines,  enumerated  in  his  very  curious  "  Cen- 
tenary of  Inventions,"  on  condition  that  money  should  be 
gi-anted  to  extricate  him  from  the  difficulties  in  which  he  had 
involved  himself,  hy  the  prosecution  of  useful  discoveries. 
The  petition  does  not  appear  to  have  been  attended  to! 
Many  of  these  admirable  inventions  were  lost.  The  steam 
engine  and  the  telegraph  may  be  traced  among  them. 

It  appears  by  the  Harieian  MS.  7524,  that  Rushworth,  the 
author  of  the  "Historical  Collections,"  passed  the  last  years 
of  his  life  in  jail,  where  indeed  he  died.  After  the  Restora- 
tion, when  he  presented  to  the  king  several  of  the  privnr 
council's  books,  which  he  had  preserved  from  ruin,  he  ve- 
ceived  for  his  only  reward  the  thanks  of  Ms  majesty.  ' 

RjTner,  the  Collector  of  the  Foedera,  must  have  been 
sadly  reduced,  by  the  following  letter,  I  found  addi-essed  by 
Peter  le  Neve,  Norroy,  to  the  Eari  of  Oxford. 

"  I  am  desired  by  Mr.  RjTner,  historiographer,  to  lay  be- 
fore  your  lordship  the  circumstances  of  his  affairs.  He  was 
forced  some  yeiirs  back  to  part  with  aU  his  choice  printed 


POVERTY  OF  THE  LEARNED.  85 

books  to  subsist  himself:  and  now,  he  says,  he  must  be  forced, 
for  subsistence,  to  sell  all  his  MS.  collections  to  the  b(;st  bid- 
der, without  your  lordsliip  will  be  pleased  to  buy  them  for  the 
queen's  library.  They  are  fifty  volumes  in  folio,  of  public 
affairs,  which  he  hath  collected,  but  not  printed.  The  price 
he  asks  is  five  hundred  pounds." 

Simon  Ockley,  a  learned  student  in  Oriental  literature, 
addi'esses  a  letter  to  the  same  earl,  in  which  he  paints  his 
distresses  in  glowing  colours.  After  having  devoted  his  life 
to  Asiatic  researches,  then  very  uncommon,  he  had  the  mor- 
tification of  dating  his  preface  to  his  great  work  from  Cam- 
bridge Castle,  where  he  was  confined  for  debt ;  and,  with  an 
air  of  triumph,  feels  a  martyr's  enthusiasm  in  the  cause  for 
which  he  perishes. 

He  published  his  first  volume  of  the  History  of  the  Sara- 
cens, in  1708 ;  and,  ardently  pursuing  his  oriental  studies, 
published  his  second,  ten  years  afterwards,  without  any 
patronage.  Alluding  to  the  encouragement  necessary  to 
bestow  on  youth,  to  remove  the  obstacles  to  such  studies,  he 
observes,  that  "  young  men  will  hardly  come  in  on  the  pros- 
pect of  finding  leisure,  in  a  prison,  to  transcribe  those  papers 
for  the  press,  which  they  have  collected  with  indefatigable 
labour,  and  oftentimes  at  the  expense  of  their  rest,  and  all 
the  other  conveniences  of  life,  for  the  service  of  the  public. 
No  !  though  I  were  to  assure  them,  from  my  own  experience, 
that  /  have  enjoyed  more  true  liberty,  more  hoppy  leisure, 
and  more  solid  repose,  in  six  months  here,  than  in  thrice 
the  same  number  of  years  before.  Evil  is  the  condition  of 
that  historian  who  undertakes  to  write  the  lives  of  others 
before  he  knows  how  to  live  himself. — Not  that  I  speak  thus 
as  if  I  thought  I  had  any  just  cause  to  be  angry  with  the 
world — I  did  always  in  my  judgment  give  the  possession  of 
wisdom  the  preference  to  that  of  riches  !  " 

Spenser,  the  child  of  Fancy,  languished  out  his  life  in 
misery.  "  Lord  Burleigh,"  says  Granger,  "  who  it  is  said 
prevented  the  queen  giving  him  a  hundred  pounds,  seems  to 


86  POVERTY   OF   THE   LEARNED. 

have  thought  the  lowest  clerk  in  his  office  a  more  deserving 
person."  Mr.  Malone  attempts  to  show  that  Spenser  had  a 
small  pension  ;  but  the  poet's  querulous  verses  must  not  bo 
forgotten — 

"  Full  little  knowest  thou,  that  hast  not  try'd 
What  Hell  it  is,  in  suing  long  to  bide." 

To  lose  good  days — to  waste  long  nights — and,  as  he  feel- 
ingly exclaims, 

"  To  fawn,  to  crouch,  to  wait,  to  ride,  to  run, 
To  speed,  to  give,  to  want,  to  be  undone  1 " 

How  affecting  is  the  death  of  Sydenham,  who  had  devoted 
his  life  to  a  laborious  version  of  Plato !  He  died  in  a  spung- 
ing  house,  and  it  was  his  death  which  appears  to  have  given 
rise  to  the  Literary  Fund  "  for  the  relief  of  distressed  au- 
thors." 

"Who  will  pursue  important  labours  when  they  read  these 
anecdotes  ?  Dr.  Edmund  Castell  spent  a  great  part  of  his 
life  in  compiling  his  Lexicon  Heptaglotton,  on  which  he  be- 
stowed incredible  pains,  and  expended  on  it  no  less  than 
12,000^.,  broke  his  constitution,  and  exhausted  his  fortune. 
At  length  it  was  printed,  but  the  copies  remained  unsold  on 
his  hands.  He  exhibits  a  curious  picture  of  literary  labour 
in  his  preface.  "  As  for  myself,  I  have  been  unceasingly 
occupied  for  such  a  number  of  years  in  this  mass,"  Molen- 
dino  he  calls  them,  "  that  that  day  seemed,  as  it  were,  a 
holiday  in  which  I  have  not  laboured  so  much  as  sixteen 
or  eighteen  hours  in  these  enlarging  lexicons  and  Polyglot 
Bibles." 

Le  Sage  resided  in  a  little  cottage  while  he  supplied  the 
world  with  their  most  agreeable  novels,  and  appears  to  have 
derived  the  sources  of  his  existence  in  his  old  age  from  the 
filial  exertions  of  an  excellent  son,  who  was  an  actor  of  some 
genius.  I  wish,  however,  that  every  man  of  letters  could 
apply  to  himself  the  epitaph  of  this  delightful  writer : — 


IMPRISONMENT    OF   THE   LEARNED.  87 

Sous  ce  tombeau  git  Le  Sage,  abattu 
Par  le  ciseau  de  la  Parque  importune; 
S'il  ne  fut  pas  ami  de  la  fortune, 
II  fut  toujours  ami  de  la  vertu. 

Many  years  after  this  article  had  been  written,  I  pub- 
lished "  Calamities  of  Authors,"  confining  myself  to  those  of 
our  owTi  country ;  the  catalogue  is  incomplete,  but  far  too 
numerous. 


IMPRISONMENT   OF   THE  LEARNED. 

IirPRisONMENT  has  not  always  disturbed  the  man  of  letters 
in  the  progress  of  his  studies,  but  has  unquestionably  greatly 
promoted  them. 

In  prison  Boethius  composed  his  work  on  the  Consolations 
of  Philosophy  ;  and  Grotius  ^Tote  his  Commentary  on  Saint 
Matthew,  with  other  works ;  the  detail  of  his  allotment  of 
time  to  different  studies,  during  his  confinement,  is  very  in- 
structive. 

Buchanan,  in  the  dungeon  of  a  monastery  in  Portugal 
composed  his  excellent  Paraphrases  of  the  Psalms  of  David. 

Cervantes  composed  the  most  agreeable  book  in  the  Span- 
ish language  during  his  captivity  in  Barbaiy. 

Fleta,  a  well-known  law  production,  was  written  by  a  per- 
son confined  in  the  Fleet  tor  debt  ;  the  name  of  the  place, 
though  not  that  of  the  author,  has  thus  been  preserved  ;  and 
another  work,  "  Fleta  Elinor,  or  the  Laws  of  Art  and  Nature 
in  knowing  the  bodies  of  Metals,  &c.  by  Sir  John  Pettus, 
1683  ;  "  received  its  title  from  the  circimastance  of  his  having 
translated  it  from  the  German  during  his  confinement  in  this 
prison. 

Louis  the  Twelfth,  when  Duke  of  Orleans,  was  long  im- 
prisoned in  the  Tower  of  Bourges :  applying  himself  to  his 
Btudies,  which  he  had  hitherto  neglected,  he  became,  in  con- 
sequence, an  enlightened  monarch. 


g3  IMPRISONMENT   OF   THE   LEARNED. 

Margaret,  queen  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  King  of  France 
confined  in  the  Louvre,  pursued  very  warmly  tlie  studies  of 
elegant  Hterature,  and  composed  a  very  skihul  apology  for 
the  irregularities  of  her  conduct. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  unfinished  History  of  the  World, 
which  leaves  us  to  regret  that  later  ages  had  not  been  cele- 
brated by  his  eloquence,  was  the  fruits  of  eleven  years  of 
imprisonment.  It  was  written  for  the  use  of  Prince  Henry, 
as  he  and  Dallington,  who  also  wrote  "Aphorisms  "  for  the 
same  prince,  have  told  us  ;  the  prince  looked  over  the  manu 
script.  Of  Raleigh  it  is  observed,  to  employ  the  language  of 
Hume,  "  They  were  struck  with  the  extensive  genius  of  the 
man,  who,  being  educated  amidst  naval  and  military  enter- 
prises, had  surpassed,  in  the  pursuits  of  literature,  even  those 
of  the  most  recluse  and  sedentary  hves ;  and  they  admired 
his  unbroken  magnanimity,  which,  at  liis  age,  and  under  his 
circumstances,  could  engage  liim  to  undertake  and  execute  so 
great  a  work,  as  liis  History  of  the  World."  He  was  assisted 
in  tliis  great  work  by  the  learning  of  several  eminent  per- 
sons, a  circumstance  which  has  not  been  usually  noticed. 

The  plan  of  the  "  Henriade  "  was  sketched,  and  the  greater 
part  composed,  by  Voltaire  durmg  his  imprisonment  in  the 
Bastile  ;  and  "  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  of  Bunyan  was  per- 
formed in  tlie  circuit  of  a  prison's  walls. 

Howell,  the  author  of  "  FamiUar  Letters,"  ^vrote  the  chief 
part  of  them,  and  almost  all  his  other  works,  during  his  long 
confinement  in  the  Fleet  prison ;  he  employed  his  fertile  pen 
for  subsistence  ;  and  in  all  his  books  we  find  much  entertain- 
ment. 

Lydiat,  while  confined  in  the  Kmg's  Bench  for  debt,  -wrote 
his  Annotations  on  the  Parian  Chronicle,  which  were  first 
published  by  Prideaux.  He  was  the  learned  scholar  alluded 
to  by  Johnson  ;  an  allusion  not  known  to  Boswell  and  others. 
The  learned  Selden,  committed  to  prison  for  his  attacks  on 
the  divine  right  of  tithes  and  the  king's  prerogative,  prepared 
during  his  confinement  his  "  History  of  Eadmer,"  enriched  by 
his  notes. 


IMPRISONMENT   OF   THE   LEARNED.  89 

Cardinal  Polignac  foi'med  the  design  of  refuting  the  argu- 
Dients  of  the  skeptics  which  Bayle  had  been  renewing  in  hia 
dictionary ;  but  his  pubhc  occupations  hindered  him.  Two 
exiles  at  length  fortunatelj  gave  him  the  leisure ;  and  the 
Anti-Lucretius  is  the  fruit  of  the  court  disgraces  of  it,s  author. 

Frei'et,  when  imprisoned  in  the  Bastile,  was  permitted  only 
to  have  Bayle  for  his  companion.  His  dictionary  was  always 
before  him,  and  his  principles  were  got  by  heart.  To  this 
circumstance  we  owe  his  works,  animated  by  all  the  powers 
of  skepticism. 

Su"  William  Davenant  finished  liis  poem  of  Gondibert 
during  his  confinement  by  the  rebels  in  Carisbrook  Castle. 
George  Wither  dedicates  his  "  Shepherd's  Hunting,"  "  To  his 
friends,  my  visitants  in  the  Marshalsea  : "  these  "  eclogues  " 
having  been  printed  in  liis  imprisonment. 

De  Foe,  confined  in  Newgate  for  a  pohtical  pamphlet, 
began  his  "  Eeview ; "  a  periodical  paper,  which  was  ex- 
tended to  nine  thick  volumes  in  quarto,  and  it  has  been  sup- 
posed served  as  the  model  of  the  celebrated  papei's  of  Steele. 

Wicquefort's  curious  work  "  on  Ambassadors  "  is  dated  from 
his  prison,  where  he  had  been  confined  for  state  affairs.  He 
softened  the  rigour  of  those  heavy  hours  by  several  historical 
works. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  facts  of  this  kind  is  the  fate  of 
an  Italian  scholar,  of  the  name  of  Maggi.  Early  addicted  to 
the  study  of  the  sciences,  and  particularly  to  the  mathematics, 
and  miUtary  arcliitecture,  he  successfully  defended  Fama- 
gusta,  besieged  by  the  Turks,  by  inventing  machines  which 
destroyed  their  works.  When  that  city  was  taken  in  1571, 
tbey  pillaged  his  hbrary  and  carried  him  away  in  chains. 
Now  a  slave,  after  his  daily  labours  he  amused  a  great  part 
of  his  nights  by  literary  compositions  ;  De  TintinnahuUs,  on 
Bells,  a  treatise  still  read  by  the  curious,  was  actually  com- 
posed by  him  when  a  slave  in  Turkey,  without  any  other 
resource  than  the  erudition  of  liis  own  memory,  and  the 
genius  of  which  adversity  could  not  deprive  him. 


90  AMUSEMENTS    OF  THE   LEARNED. 


AMUSEMENTS   OF   THE  LEARNED. 

Among  the  Jesuits  it  was  a  standing  rule  of  the  order 
that  after  an  application  to  study  for  two  hours,  the  mind  of 
the  student  should  be  unbent  by  some  relaxation,  however 
trilling.     When    Petavius    was    employed  in  his   Dogmata 
Theologica,  a  work  of  the   most   profound    and    extensive 
erudition,  the   great  recreation  of  the  learned  father  was, 
at  the  end  of  every  second  hour,  to  twirl  his  chair  for  five 
minutesl     After  protracted  studies  Spinosa  would  mix  with 
the  family-party  where  he  lodged,  and  join  in  the  most  triv- 
ial conversations,  or  unbend  his  mind  by  setting  spiders  to 
fight  each  other ;   he  observed  their  combats  with  so  much 
interest,  that  he  was  often  seized  with  immoderate  fits  of 
laughter.     A  continuity  of  labour  deadens  the  soul,  observes 
Seneca,  in  closing  liis  treatise  on  "  The  Tranquillity  of  the 
Soul,"  and  the  mind  must  unbend  itself  by  certain  amuse- 
ments.    Socrates  did  not  blush  to  play  with  children  ;    Cato, 
over  his  bottle,  found  an  alleviation  from  the  fatigues  of  gov- 
ernment ;  a  circumstance,  Seneca  says  in  his  manner,  which 
rather  gives  honour  to  this  defect,  than  the  defect  dishonours 
Cato.     Some  men  of  letters  portioned  out  their  day  between 
repose   and  labour.      Asinius   Pollio  would  not  suffer  any 
business  to  occupy   him  beyond  a  stated  hour;   after  that 
time  he  would  not  allow  any  letter  to  be  opened,  that  his 
hours  of  recreation  might  not  be  interrupted  by  unforeseen 
labours.      In  the  senate,   after  the  tenth  hour,  it  was  not 
allowed  to  make  any  new  motion. 

Tycho  Brahe  diverted  himself  with  pohshing  glasses  for 
all  kinds  of  spectacles,  and  making  mathematical  instruments  ; 
an  employment  too  closely  connected  with  his  studies  to  be 
deemed  an  amusement. 

DAndilly,  the  translator  of  Josephus,  after  seven  or  eight 
hours  of  study  every  day,  amused  himself  in  cultivating  trees  ; 
Barclay,  the  author  of  the  Argenis,  in  his  leisure  hours  was 


AMUSEMENTS   OF   THE   LEARNED.  91 

a  florist ;  Balzac  amused  himself  with  a  collection  of  crayon 
portraits  ;  Peiresc  found  his  amusement  amongst  his  medals 
and  antiquarian  curiosities  ;  the  Abbe  de  MaroUes  with  his 
prints ;  and  Politian  in  singing  airs  to  his  lute.  Descartes 
passed  his  afternoons  in  the  conversation  of  a  few  friends,  and 
in  cultivating  a  little  garden  ;  in  the  morning,  occupied  by  the 
system  of  the  world,  he  relaxed  liis  profound  speculations  by 
rearing  delicate  flowers. 

Conrad  ab  Uffenbach,  a  learned  German,  recreated  his 
mind,  after  severe  studies,  with  a  collection  of  prints  of  em- 
inent persons,  methodically  arranged  ;  he  retained  this  ardour 
of  the  Grangerite  to  his  last  days. 

Rohault  wandered  from  shop  to  shop  to  observe  the  me- 
chanics labour ;  Count  Caylus  passed  his  mornings  in  the 
studios  of  artists,  and  his  evenings  in  writing  his  numerous 
works  on  art.     This  was  the  true  life  of  an  amateur. 

Granville  Sharpe,  amidst  the  severity  of  his  studies,  found 
a  social  relaxation  in  the  amusement  of  a  barge  on  the 
Thames,  which  was  well  known  to  the  circle  of  his  friends ; 
there,  was  festive  hospitality  with  musical  delight.  It  was 
resorted  to  by  men  of  the  most  eminent  talents  and  rank. 
His  little  voyages  to  Putney,  to  Kew,  and  to  Richmond,  and 
the  literary  intercourse  they  produced,  were  singularly  happy 
ones.  "  The  history  of  his  amusements  cannot  be  told  with- 
out adding  to  the  dignity  of  his  character,"  observes  Prince 
Hoare,  in  the  life  of  this  great  philanthropist. 

Some  have  found  amusement  in  composing  treatises  on  odd 
subjects.  Seneca  wrote  a  burlesque  narrative  of  Claudian's 
death.  Pierius  Valerianus  has  written  an  eulogium  on 
beards ;  and  we  have  had  a  learned  one  recently,  with  due 
gravity  and  pleasantry,  entitled  "  Eloge  de  Perruques." 

Ilolstein  has  written  an  eulogium  on  the  North  Wind; 
Heinsius,  on  "  the  Ass  ; "  Menage,  "  the  Transmigration  of 
the  Parasitical  Pedant  to  a  Parrot;"  and  also  the  "  Petition 
of  the  Dictionaries." 

Erasmus  composed,  to  amuse  himself  when  travelling,  his 


92         AMUSEMENTS  OF  THE  LEARNED. 

panegyric  on  Moria,  or  Follj  ;  which,  authorized  by  the  pun, 
he  dedicated  to  Sir  Thomas  More. 

Sallengre,  who  would  amuse  himself  like  Erasmus,  wrote, 
in  imitation  of  his  work,  a  panegyric  on  Ehriety.  He  says,' 
that  he  is  willing  to  be  thought  as  drunken  a  man  as  Erasmus 
was  a  foolish  one.  Synesius  composed  a  Greek  panegyric 
on  Baldness.  These  burlesques  were  brought  iiito  great 
vogue  by  Erasmus's  MoricB  Encomium. 

It  seems,  Johnson  observes  in  his  hfe  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  to  have  been  in  aU  ages  the  pride  of  art  to  show 
how  it  could  exalt  the  low  and  amplify  the  little.  To  this 
ambition  perhaps  we  owe  the  Frogs  of  Homer ;  the  Gnat 
and  the  Bees  of  Virgil;  the  Butterfly  of  Spenser;  the 
Shadow  of  Wowerus  ;    and  the  Quincunx  of  Bro^\Tie. 

Cardinal  de  Richelieu,  amongst  aU  Ids  great  occupations, 
found  a  recreation  in  violent  exercises  ;  and  he  was  once  dis- 
covered jumping  with  his  servant,  to  try  who  could  reach  the 
highest  side  of  a  wall.  De  Grammont,  observing  the  cardi- 
nal to  be  jealous  of  his  powers,  offered  to  jump  with  him ; 
alid,  m  the  true  spu-it  of  a  courtier,  having  made  some  efforts 
which  nearly  reached  the  cardinal's,  confessed  the  cardinal 
surpassed  him.  This  was  jumping  like  a  pohtician ;  and 
by  this  means  he  is  said  to  have  uigratiated  himself  with 
the  minister. 

The  great  Samuel  Clarke  was  fond  of  robust  exercise ; 
and  this  profound  logician  has  been  found  leaping  over 
tables  and  chairs.  Once  perceiving  a  pedantic  fellow,  he 
said,  "  Now  we  must  desist,  for  a  fool  is  coming  in  !  " 

An  eminent  French  lawyer,  confined  by  hil  business  to  a 
Parisian  hfe,  amused  hhnself  with  coUecting  from  the  classics 
aU  the  passages  which  relate  to  a  country  hfe.  The  collec- 
tion was  published  after  his  death. 

Contemplative  men  seem  to  be  fond  of  amusements  which 
accord  with  their  habits.  The  thoughtful  game  of  chess,  and 
the  tranquil  dchght  of  angling,  have  been  favourite  recre- 
ations with  the  studious.     Paley  had  himself  painted  with  a 


AMUSEMENTS  OF  THE  LEARNED.         93 

rod  and  line  in  his  hand  ;  a  strange  characteristic  for  the 
author  of  "  Natural  Theology."  Sir  Henry  Wotton  called 
angling  "  idle  time  not  idly  spent :  "  we  may  suppose  that  his 
meditations  and  his  amusements  were  carried  on  at  the  same 
moment. 

The  amusements  of  the  great  d'Aguesseau,  chancellor  of 
France,  consisted  in  an  interchange  of  studies ;  his  relax- 
ations were  all  the  varieties  of  literature.  "  Le  changement 
de  I'etude  est  raon  seul  delassement,"  said  this  great  man  ; 
and  "  in  the  age  of  the  passions,  his  only  passion  was  study." 

Seneca  has  observed  on  amusements  proper  for  literary 
men,  that,  in  regard  to  robust  exercises,  it  is  not  decent  to 
see  a  man  of  letters  exult  in  the  strength  of  his  arm,  or  the 
breadth  of  his  back  !  Such  amusements  diminish  the  activity 
of  the  mind.  Too  much  fatigue  exhausts  the  animal  spirits, 
as  too  much  food  blunts  the  finer  faculties  :  but  elsewhere  he 
allows  his  philosopher  an  occasional  slight  inebriation  ;  an 
amusement  which  was  very  prevalent  among  our  poets 
formerly,  when  they  exclaimed. 

Fetch  me  Ben  Jonson's  scull,  and  fiU't  with  sack, 
Kich  as  the  same  he  drank,  when  the  whole  pack 
Of  jolly  sisters  pledged,  and  did  agree 
It  was  no  sin  to  be  as  drunk  as  he ! 

Seneca  concludes  admirably,  "whatever  be  the  amuse- 
ments you  choose,  return  not  slowly  from  those  of  the  body 
to  the  mind  ;  exercise  the  latter  night  and  day.  The  mind 
is  nourished  at  a  cheap  rate  ;  neither  cold  nor  heat,  nor  age 
itself,  can  interrupt  this  exercise  ;  give  therefore  all  your 
cares  to  a  possession  which  ameliorates  even  in  its  old 
age!"_ 

An  ingenious  writer  has  observed,  that  "  a  garden  just 
accommodates  itself  to  the  perambulations  of  a,  scholar,  who 
would  perhaps  rather  wish  his  Avalks  abridged  than  ex- 
tended." There  is  a  good  characteristic  account  of  the 
mode  in  which  the   Literati  may  take  exercise,  in  FopeV 


91  PORTRAITS    OF   AUTHORS. 

Letters.  "  I,  like  a  poor  squirrel,  am  continually  in  motion 
indeed,  but  it  is  but  a  cage  of  three  foot !  my  little  excursions 
are  like  those  of  a  shopkeeper,  who  walks  every  day  a  mile 
or  two  before  his  own  door,  but  minds  his  business  all  the 
while."  A  turn  or  two  in  a  garden  will  often  very  happily 
close  a  fine  period,  mature  an  unrij)ened  thought,  and  raise  up 
fresh  associations,  whenever  the  mind  like  the  body  becomes 
rigid  bv  preserving  the  same  posture.  Buffon  often  quitted 
the  old  tower  he  studied  in,  which  was  placed  in  the  midst 
of  his  garden,  for  a  walk  in  it ;  Evelj-n  loved  "  books  and  a 
garden." 


PORTRAITS   OF   AUTHORS. 

With  the  ancients,  it  was  undoubtedly  a  custom  to  place 
the  portraits  of  authors  before  their  works.  Martial's  18Gth 
epigram  of  his  fourteenth  book  is  a  mere  play  on  words,  con- 
cerning a  little  volume  containing  the  works  of  Virgil,  and 
which  had  his  portrait  prefixed  to  it.  The  volume  and  the 
characters  must  have  been  very  diminutive. 

Quam  brei'is  immensum  cepit  membrana  Maronem  ! 
Ij)sim  Vultus  pnma  tabella  geril. 

Martial  is  not  the  only  writer  who  takes  notice  of  the 
ancients  prefixing  portraits  to  the  works  of  authors.  Seneca, 
in  his  ninth  chapter  on  the  Tranquillity  of  the  Soul,  com- 
plains of  many  of  the  luxurious  great,  who,  like  so  many  of 
our  own  collectors,  possessed  hbraries  as  they  did  their  es- 
tates and  equipages.  "  It  is  melancholy  to  observe  how  the 
portraits  of  men  of  genius,  and  the  works  of  their  divine 
intelligence,  are  used  only  as  the  luxury  and  the  ornaments 
of  walls." 

Pliny  has  nearly  the  same  observation,  lih.  xxxv.  cap.  2. 
He  remarks,  that  the  custom  was  rather  modern  in  his  time ; 
and  attributes  to  Asinius  PoUio  the  honour  of  having  intro* 


PORTRAITS   OF   AUTHORS.  95 

duced  it  into  Rome.  "  In  consecrating  a  library  with  the 
portraits  of  our  iUustrious  authors,  he  has  formed,  if  I  may 
so  express  myself,  a  republic  of  the  intellectual  powers  of 
men."  To  the  richness  of  book-treasures,  Aslnius  Pollio  had 
associated  a  new  source  of  pleasure,  in  placing  the  statues 
of  their  authors  amidst  them,  inspiring  the  minds  of  the  spec 
tators  even  by  their  eyes. 

A  taste  for  collecting  portraits,  or  busts,  was  warmly  pur- 
sued in  the  happier  periods  of  Rome  ;  for  the  celebrated 
Atticus,  in  a  work  he  published  of  illustrious  Romans,  made 
it  more  delightful,  by  ornamenting  it  with  the  portraits  of 
those  great  men  ;  and  the  learned  Varro,  in  his  biography  of 
Seven  Hundred  celebrated  Men,  by  giving  the  world  their 
true  features  and  their  physiognomy  in  some  manner,  allquo 
modo  imaginibus  is  Pliny's  expression,  showed  that  even  their 
persons  should  not  entirely  be  annihilated  ;  they  indeed,  adds 
Pliny,  form  a  spectacle  which  the  gods  themselves  might 
contemplate ;  for  if  the  gods  sent  those  heroes  to  the  earth, 
it  is  Varro  who  secured  their  immortality,  and  has  so  multi- 
plied and  distributed  them  in  all  places,  that  we  may  carry 
them  about  us,  place  them  wherever  we  choose,  and  fix  our 
eyes  on  them  ^vith  perpetual  admiration.  A  spectacle  that 
every  day  becomes  more  varied  and  interesting,  as  new 
heroes  appear,  and  as  works  of  this  kind  are  spread  abroad. 

But  as  printing  was  unknown  to  the  ancients  (though 
stamping  an  impression  was  daily  practised,  and,  in  fact, 
they  possessed  the  art  of  printing  without  being  aware  of  it), 
how  were  these  portraits  of  Varro  so  easily  propagated  ?  If 
copied  with  a  pen,  their  correctness  was  in  some  danger,  and 
their  diffusion  must  have  been  very  confined  and  slow  ;  per- 
haps they  were  outlines.  This  passage  of  Pliny  excites 
curiosity  difficult  to  satisfy  ;  I  have  in  vain  inquired  of  sev- 
eral scholars,  particularly  of  the  late  Grecian,  Dr.  Burney. 

A  collection  of  the  portraits  of  illustrious  characters,  affords 
not  only  a  source  of  entertainment  and  curiosity,  but  dis- 
plays the  different  modes  or  habits  of  the  time ;  and  in  set^ 


96  PORTRAITS    OF   AUTHORS. 

tling  our  floating  ideas  upon  the  true  features  of  famous 
persons,  they  also  fix  the  chronological  particulars  of  their 
bu'th,  age,  death,  sometimes  with  short  characters  of  them, 
besides  the  names  of  painter  and  engraver.  It  is  thus  a 
single  print,  by  the  hand  of  a  skilful  artist,  may  become  a 
varied  banquet.  To  this  Granger  adds,  that  in  a  collection 
of  engraved  portraits,  the  contents  of  many  galleries  are 
reduced  into  the  narrow  compass  of  a  few  volumes  ;  and  the 
portraits  of  eminent  persons,  who  distinguished  themselves 
tlu'ough  a  long  succession  of  ages,  may  be  turned  over  in  a 
few  hours. 

"  Another  advantage,"  Granger  continues,  "  attending  such 
an  assemblage  is,  that  the  methodical  arrangement  has  a 
surpi'ising  effect  upon  the  memory.  "\Ye  see  the  celebrated 
contemporaries  of  every  age  almost  at  one  view ;  and  the 
mind  is  insensibly  led  to  the  history  of  that  period.  I  may 
add  to  these,  an  important  circumstance,  which  is,  the  power 
that  such  a  collection  will  have  in  awaheninfj  genius.  A 
skilful  preceptor  will  presently  perceive  the  true  bent  of  the 
temper  of  his  pupil,  by  his  being  struck  mth  a  Blake  or  a 
Boyle,  a  Hyde  or  a  Milton." 

A  circumstance  in  the  life  of  Cicero  confii-ms  this  observa- 
tion. Atticus  had  a  gallery  adorned  with  the  images  or 
portraits  of  the  great  men  of  Rome,  under  each  of  which 
he  had  severally  described  their  principal  acts  and  honours, 
in  a  few  concise  verses  of  his  own  composition.  It  was  by  the 
contemplation  of  two  of  these  portraits  (the  ancient  Brutus 
and  a  venerable  relative  in  one  picture)  that  Cicero  seems 
to  have  incited  Brutus,  by  the  example  of  these  his  great 
ancestors,  to  dissolve  the  tyranny  of  Cfesar.  General  Fair- 
fax made  a  collection  of  engraved  portraits  of  warriors.  A 
Btory  much  in  favour  of  portrait-collectors  is  that  of  the 
Athenian  courtesan,  who,  in  the  midst  of  a  riotous  banquet 
with  her  lovers,  accidentally  casting  her  eyes  on  the  portrait 
of  a  philosopher  that  hung  opposite  to  her  seat,  the  happy 
character  of  temperance  and  virtue  struck  her  with  so  hvely 


PORTRATTS    OF    AUTHORS.  97 

an  image  of  her  own  uiiworthiness,  that  she  suddenly  re- 
treated for  ever  from  the  scene  of  debauchery.  The  Orien- 
talists have  felt  the  same  charm  in  their  pictured  memorials ; 
for  "  the  imperial  Akber,"  says  Mr.  Forbes,  in  his  Oriental 
Memoirs,  "  employed  artists  to  make  portraits  of  all  the 
principal  omrahs  and  officers  in  his  court; "  they  were  bound 
together  in  a  thick  volume,  wherein,  as  the  Ayeen  Akbery, 
or  the  Institutes  of  Akber,  expresses  it,  "  The  Past  are 
kept  in  lively  remembrance ;  and  the  Present  are  insured 
immortality." 

Leonard  Aretin,  when  young  and  in  prison,  found  a  por- 
trait of  Petrarch,  on  which  his  eyes  were  perpetually  fixed ; 
and  this  sort  of  contemplation  iufiamed  the  desire  of  imitat- 
ing this  great  man.  Buffon  hung  the  portrait  of  Newton 
before  his  writing-table. 

On  this  subject,  Tacitus  sublimely  expresses  himself  at  the 
close  of  his  admired  biography  of  Agricola:  "  I  do  not  mean 
to  censure  the  custom  of  preserving  in  brass  or  marble  the 
shape  and  stature  of  eminent  men ;  but  busts  and  statues, 
like  their  originals,  are  frail  and  perishable.  The  soul  is 
formed  of  finer  elements,  its  inward  form  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pressed by  the  hand  of  an  artist  with  unconscious  matter ; 
our  manners  and  our  morals  may  in  some  degree  trace  the 
resemblance.  All  of  Agricola  that  gained  our  love  and 
raised  our  admiration  still  subsists,  and  ever  will  subsist,  pre- 
served in  the  minds  of  men,  the  register  of  ages  and  the 
records  of  fame." 

What  is  more  agreeable  to  the  curiosity  of  the  mind  and 
the  eye  than  the  portraits  of  great  characters  ?  An  old 
philosopher,  whom  Marville  invited  to  see  a  collection  of 
landscapes  by  a  celebrated  artist,  replied,  "  Landscapes  T 
prefer  seeing  in  the  country  itself,  but  I  am  fond  of  contem- 
plating the  pictures  of  illustrious  men."  This  opinion  has 
some  truth ;  Lord  Orford  preferred  an  interesting  portrait  to 
either  landscape  or  historical  painting.  "  A  landscape,  how- 
ever excellent  in  its  distributions  of  wood  and  water,  and 

VOL.   I.  7 


"8  POETEAITS    OF    AUTHORS. 

builJings  leaves  not  one  (race  in  tl,e  memory;  Iu„orical 
..a.n.mg  ,s  perpetually  faUe  i„  a  variety  of  way.  „  "h^^ 
ume,  the  grouping,  the  portrait.,  and  l  n„thi,V  morr,han 
abulous  pa,„t,„g;  but  a  real  portrait  is  truth  itself,  and  oalU 
2>  -  ...any  eollateral  ideas  as  to  till  an  intelligent  mind  t^o^ 
than  any  other  species." 

Marville  justly  reprehends  the  fastidious  feelings  of  Iho-e 
mgn,„us   ,nen   who  have    resisted    the   solicitatfons  o    th" 

much  p„de  as  »  ,s  vainly  in  those  who  are  less  diffleult  in 
1..S  respect.     Of  Gray,  Fielding,  and  Akenside,  we  hav    ™ 
1.  a,ls  for  winch  they  sat;  a  cireuutstanee  regre  ted  by  their 
admirers,  and  by  physiognomists.  ^ 

To  .tu  arranged  collection  of  Portraits,  we  owe  several 
m  er<.tmg  works.  Gtunger's  justly  esteem;d  vohnnefor^ 
nated  m  such  a  collection.  Pcrraulfs  £/oges  of  ••  the  iltal 
tnous  men  of  the  seventeenth  century"  Le  drawn  un,„ 

chaiactet,  of  the  age,  which  a  fervent  lover  of  the  fine  arts 

rrrror:irme?"^r  ^  -  eieganttributrio^h: 

a.  G..;nger.s  ,oC -Xhc  ^^t^  ^  ^  ^^ ^y' 
,'n",?'  ';Vf/'"»«''™-f  P-l-  Jovius,  which  orig  ,"S 

:ut::::r^"-^"'  -'■"^^  ^"-"»  •■^  ■>-  "--''>«>"-"> 

Paulus  Jovius  had  a  country  house,  in  an  insular  situation 
of  a  most  r„m„nt,c  aspect.  Built  on  the  ruins  of  the  villa"  f 
H  ny,  m  h,s  t,me  the  foundations  were  still  to  be  traced 
When  the  surrounding  lake  was  calm,  in  its  lueid  boSm 
were  st.U  viewed  sculptured  marbles,  the  trunks  of  olln" 
and  the  fragments  of  those  pyramids  which  h.,d  once  adorned 
he  restdence  of  the  friend  of  Trajan.  Jovius  was  nen 
thns,a.t  of  bterary  leisure  ;  an  histori.an,  with  the  imagination 
of  a  poet ;  a  ttristian  prelate  nourished  on  the  sweetfc^^ 
of  pagan  mythology.  His  pen  colours  like  a  pencil.  He 
pmnts  rapturously  Ids  gardens  bathed  by  the  waters  of  the 


PORTRAITS   OF   AUTHORS.  99 

lake,  the  shade  and  freshness  of  his  woods,  his  green  liills, 
his  sparkling  fountains,  the  deep  silence,  and  the  calm  of 
solitude.  He  describes  a  statue  raised  in  his  gardens  to  Na 
TURE  ;  in  his  hall  an  Apollo  presided  with  his  lyre,  and  the 
JNIuses  with  their  attributes ;  his  Ubrary  was  guarded  by 
Mercury,  and  an  apartment  devoted  to  the  three  Graces  was 
embellished  by  Doric  columns,  and  paintings  of  the  most 
pleasing  kind.  Such  was  the  interior !  Without,  the  pure 
and  transparent  lake  spread  its  broad  mirror,  or  rolled  its 
voluminous  windings,  by  banks  richly  covered  Avith  olives 
and  laurels ;  and  in  the  distance,  towns,  promontories,  hills 
rising  in  an  amphitheatre  blushing  with  vines,  and  the  eleva- 
tions of  the  Alps  covered  with  woods  and  pasturage,  and 
sprinkled  with  herds  and  flocks. 

In  the  centre  of  this  enchanting  habitation  stood  the 
Cabixet,  where  Paulus  Jovius  had  collected,  at  great  cost, 
the  Portraits  of  celebrated  men  of  the  fourteenth  and  two 
succeeding  centuries.  The  daily  view  of  them  animated  his 
mind  to  compose  their  eulogiums.  These  are  still  curious, 
both  for  the  facts  they  preserve,  and  the  happy  conciseness 
with  which  Jovius  delineates  a  character.  He  had  collected 
these  portraits  as  others  form  a  collection  of  natural  history  ; 
and  he  pursued  in  their  characters  what  others  do  in  their 
experiments. 

One  caution  in  collecting  portraits  must  not  be  forgotten  ;  it 
respects  their  authenticity.  We  have  too  many  supposititious 
heads,  and  ideal  personages.  Conrad  ab  Utfenbach,  who 
Beems  to  have  been  the  first  collector  who  projected  a 
methodical  arrangement,  condemned  those  spurious  portraits 
which  were  fit  only  for  the  amusement  of  children.  The 
painter  does  not  always  give  a  correct  likeness,  or  the  en- 
graver misses  it  in  his  copy.  Goldsmith  was  a  short  thick 
man,  with  wan  features  and  a  vulgar  appearance,  but  looks 
tall  and  fashionable  in  a  bag-Avig.  Bayle's  portrait  does  not 
resemble  him,  as  one  of  his  friends  writes.  Rousseau,  in  his 
Montero  cap,  is  in  the  same  predicament.     Winkelmanu's 


100  DESTRUCTION   OF   BOOKS. 

portrait  does  not  preserve  the  striking  physiognomy  of  the 
man,  and  in  the  last  edition  a  new  one  is  substituted.  The 
faitlit'ul  Vertue  refused  to  engrave  for  Houbraken's  set,  be- 
cause they  did  not  authenticate  theu'  originals  ;  and  some  of 
these  are  spurious,  as  that  of  Ben  Jonson,  Sir  Edward  Coke, 
and  others.  Busts  are  not  so  liable  to  these  accidents.  It  ia 
to  be  regretted  that  men  of  genius  have  not  been  careful  to 
transmit  their  own  portraits  to  their  admirers ;  it  fomis  a 
part  of  their  character ;  a  false  delicacy  has  interfei-ed. 
Erasmus  did  not  like  to  have  his  own  diminutive  person  sent 
down  to  posterity,  but  Holbein  Avas  always  affectionately 
painting  his  friend.  Montesquieu  once  sat  to  Dassier  the 
medallist,  after  repeated  denials,  won  over  by  the  mgenious 
argument  of  the  artist ;  "  Do  you  not  think,"  said  Dassier, 
"  that  there  is  as  much  pride  in  refusing  my  offer  as  in 
accepting  it  ?  " 


DESTRUCTION   OF  BOOKS. 

The  literary  treasures  of  antiquity  have  suffered  from  the 
malice  of  Men,  as  well  as  that  of  Time.  It  is  remarkable 
that  conquerors,  in  the  moment  of  victory,  or  in  the  unspar- 
ing devastation  of  their  rage,  have  not  been  satisfied  with 
destroying  men,  but  have  even  carried  their  vengeance  to 
hoolcs. 

The  Persians,  from  hatred  of  the  rehgion  of  the  Phoeni- 
cians and  the  Egyptians,  destroyed  their  books,  of  which 
Eusebius  notices  a  great  number.  A  Grecian  library  at 
Gnidus  was  burnt  by  the  sect  of  Hippocrates,  because  the 
Gnidians  refused  to  follow  the  doctrines  of  their  master.  If 
the  followers  of  Hippocrates  formed  the  majority,  was  it  not 
very  unorthodox  in  the  Gnidians  to  prefer  taking  physic  their 
own  way  ?     But  Faction  has  often  annihilated  books. 

The  Romans  burnt  the  books  of  the  Jews,  of  the  Chris- 


DESTRUCTION   OF   BOOKS.  101 

tians,  and  the  Philosophers ;  the  Jews  burnt  tlie  books  of  the 
Christians  and  the  Pagans ;  and  the  Cin-istians  burnt  the 
books  of  the  Pagans  and  the  Jews.  The  greater  part  of  the 
books  of  Origen  and  other  heretics  were  continually  burnt  by 
the  orthodox  pai-ty.  Gibbon  patlictically  describes  the  empty 
library  of  Alexandria,  after  tlie  Christians  had  destroyed  it. 
"  The  valuable  library  of  Alexandria  was  pillaged  or  de- 
stroyed ;  and  near  twenty  years  afterwards  the  appearance 
of  the  empty  shelves  excited  the  regret  and  indignation  of 
every  spectator,  whose  mmd  was  not  totally  darkened  by 
religious  prejudice.  The  compositions  of  ancient  genius,  so 
many  of  which  have  irretrievably  perished,  might  surely 
have  been  excepted  from  the  wreck  of  idolatry,  for  the 
amusement  and  instruction  of  succeeding  ages ;  and  either 
the  zeal  or  avarice  of  the  archbishop  might  have  been 
satiated  with  the  richest  spoils  which  were  the  rewards  of  his 
victory." 

The  pathetic  narrative  of  Nicetas  Choniates,  of  the  ravages 
committed  by  the  Christians  of  the  thirteenth  century  in  Con- 
stantinople, was  fraudulently  suppressed  in  the  printed  edi- 
tions. It  has  been  preserved  by  Dr.  Clarke  ;  who  observes, 
that  the  Turks  have  committed  fewer  injuries  to  the  works 
of  art  than  the  barbarous  Christians  of  that  age. 

The  reading  of  the  Jewish  Talmud  has  been  forbidden  by 
various  edicts,  of  the  Emperor  Justinian,  of  many  of  the 
French  and  Spanish  kings,  and  numbers  of  Popes.  All  the 
copies  were  ordered  to  be  burnt :  the  intrepid  perseverance 
of  the  Jews  themselves  preserved  that  work  from  annihila- 
tion. In  15G9  twelve  thousand  Copies  were  thrown  into  the 
flames  at  Cremona.  John  Reuchlin  interfered  to  stop  this 
universal  destruction  of  Talmuds ;  for  which  he  became 
hated  by  the  monks,  and  condemned  by  the  Elector  of 
Mentz,  but  appealing  to  Rome,  the  prosecution  was  stopped  ; 
and  the  traditions  of  the  Jews  were  considered  as  not  neces- 
sary to  be  destroyed. 

Conquerors  at  first  destroy  -svith  the  rashest  zeal  the  na- 


102  DESTRUCTION   OF   BOOKS. 

tional  records  of  the  conquered  people  ;  hence  it  is  that  the 
Irish  people  deplore  the  iiTcparable  losses  of  their  most 
ancient  national  memorials,  wliich  their  invaders  have  been 
too  successful  in  annihilating.  The  same  event  occurred  in 
the  conquest  of  Mexico  ;  and  the  interesting  history  of  the 
New  World  must  ever  remain  imperfect,  in  consequence  of 
the  unfortunate  success  of  the  first  missionaries.  Clavigero, 
the  most  authentic  historian  of  Mexico,  continually  laments 
this  affecting  loss.  Every  thing  in  that  country  had  beeu 
painted,  and  painters  abounded  there  as  scribes  in  Europe. 
The  first  missionaries,  suspicious  that  superstition  was  mixed 
with  all  their  paintings,  attacked  the  chief  school  of  these 
artists,  and  collecting,  in  the  market-place,  a  little  mountain 
of  these  precious  records,  they  set  fire  to  it,  and  buried  m  the 
ashes  the  memory  of  many  interesting  events.  Afterwards, 
sensible  of  their  error,  they  tried  to  collect  information  from 
the  mouths  of  the  Indians ;  but  the  Indians  were  indignantly 
silent :  when  they  attempted  to  collect  the  remains  of  these 
painted  histories,  the  patriotic  Mexican  usually  buried  m 
concealment  the  fragmentary  records  of  his  country. 

The  story  of  the  Cahph  Omar  proclaiming  throughout  the 
kingdom,  at  the  taking  of  Alexandria,  that  the  Koran  con- 
tained every  thing  which  was  useful  to  believe  and  to  know, 
and  therefore  he  commanded  that  all  the  books  in  the  Alex- 
andrian library  should  be  distributed  to  the  masters  of  the 
baths,  amounting  to  4000,  to  be  used  in  heating  their  stoves 
during  a  period  of  six  months,  mo'dern  paradox  would  attempt 
to  deny.  But  the  tale  would  not  be  singular  even  were  it 
true  ;  it  perfectly  suits  the  character  of  a  bigot,  a  barbarian, 
and  a  blockhead.  A  similar  event  happened  in  Persia. 
When  Abdoolah,  who  in  the  third  century  of  the  Mohamme- 
dan jsra  governed  Khorassan,  was  presented  at  Nishapoor 
with  a  MS.  which  was  shown  as  a  literary  curiosity,  he  asked 
the  title  of  it — it  was  the  tale  of  Wamick  and  Oozra,  com- 
posed by  the  great  poet  Noshirwan.  On  this  Abdoolah 
observed,  that  those  of  his  country  and  faith  had  nothing  to 


DESTRUCTION  OF  BOOKS.  ]03 

do  witli  any  other  book  than  the  Koran  ;  and  all  Persian 
MSS.  found  within  the  circle  of  liis  government,  as  the  works 
of  idolators,  were  to  be  burnt.  Much  of  the  most  ancient 
poetry  of  the  Persians  perished  by  this  fanatical  edict. 

When  Buda  was  taken  by  the  Turks,  a  Cardinal  offered  a 
vast  sum  to  redeem  the  great  library  founded  by  Matthew 
Corvixu,  a  literary  monarch  of  Hungary  ;  it  was  rich  in  Greek 
and  Hebrew  lore,  and  the  classics  of  antiquity.  Tliirty 
amanuenses  had  been  employed  in  copying  MSS.  and  illum- 
inating them  by  the  finest  ait.  The  barbarians  destroyed 
most  of  the  books  in  tearing  away  their  splendid  covers  and 
their  silver  bosses  ;  an  Hungarian  soldier  picked  up  a  book 
as  a  prize  :  it  proved  to  be  the  Ethiopics  of  Heliodorus,  from 
which  the  first  edition  was  printed  in  1534. 

Cardinal  Ximenes  seems  to  have  retaliated  a  little  on  the 
Saracens  ;  for  at  the  taking  of  Granada,  he  condemned  to 
the  flames  five  thousand  Korans. 

The  following  anecdote  respecting  a  Spanish  missal,  called 
St.  Isidore's,  is  not  incurious  ;  hard  fighting  saved  it  from 
destruction.  In  the  Moorish  wars,  all  these  missals  had  been 
destroyed,  excepting  those  in  the  city  of  Toledo.  There,  in 
six  churches,  the  Chi'istians  were  allowed  the  free  exer- 
cise of  their  religion.  When  the  Moors  were  expelled 
several  centuries  afterwards  from  Toledo,  Alphonsus  the 
Sixth  ordered  the  Roman  missal  to  be  used  in  those 
churches  ;  but  the  people  of  Toledo  insisted  on  having  their 
own,  as  revised  by  St.  Isidore.  It  seemed  to  them  that 
Alphonsus  was  more  tyrannical  than  the  Turks.  The  con- 
test between  the  Roman  and  the  Toletan  missals  came  to  that 
lieight,  that  at  length  it  was  determined  to  decide  their  fate 
by  single  combat ;  the  champion  of  the  Toletan  missal  felled 
by  one  blow  the  knight  of  the  Roman  missal.  Alphonsus 
still  considered  this  battle  as  merely  the  effect  of  the  heavy 
arm  of  the  doughty  Toletan,  and  ordered  a  fast  to  be  pro- 
claimed, and  a  gi-eat  fire  to  be  prepared,  into  which,  after  hid 
majesty  and  the  people   had  joined   in   prayer  f'»r   heav  'july 


104  DESTRUCTION   OF  BOOKS. 

assistance  in  this  ordeal,  both  the  rivals  (not  the  men,  but  the 
missals),  were  thrown  mto  the  flames — again  St.  Isidore's 
missal  triumphed,  and  this  iron  book  was  then  allowed  to  be 
orthodox  by  Alphonsus,  and  the  good  people  of  Toledo  were 
allowed  to  say  their  2:)rayers  as  they  had  long  been  used  to 
do.  However,  the  copies  of  this  missal  at  length  became 
very  scarce  ;  for  now,  when  no  one  opposed  the  reading  of  St, 
Isidore's  missal,  none  cared  to  use  it.  Cardinal  Ximenes 
found  it  so  difficult  to  obtain  a  copy,  that  he  printed  a  large 
impression,  and  built  a  chapel,  consecrated  to  St.  Isidore,  that 
this  service  might  be  daily  chaunted  as  it  had  been  by  the 
ancient  Christians. 

The  works  of  the  ancients  were  frequently  destroyed  at 
the  instigation  of  the  monks.  They  appear  sometimes  to 
have  mutilated  them,  for  passages  have  not  come  downi  to 
us,  which  Once  evidently  existed ;  and  occasionally  their  in- 
terpolations and  other  forgeries  formed  a  destruction  in  a 
new  shape,  by  additions  to  the  originals.  They  were  inde- 
fatigable in  erasing  the  best  works  of  the  most  eminent  Greek 
and  Latm  authors,  in  order  to  transcribe  their  ridiculous  lives 
of  saints  on  the  obUterated  vellum.  One  of  the  books  of 
Livy  is  in  the  Vatican  most  painfully  defaced  by  some  jiious 
father  for  the  purpose  of  writing  on  it  some  missal  or  psalter, 
and  there  have  been  recently  others  discovei-ed  in  the  same 
state.  Inflamed  with  the  blindest  zeal  against  every  thing 
pagan.  Pope  Gregory  VII.  ordered  that  the  library  of  the 
Palatine  Apollo,  a  treasury  of  literature  formed  by  succes- 
sive emperors,  should  be  committed  to  the  flames !  He 
issued  this  order  under  the  notion  of  confining  the  attention 
of  the  clergy  to  the  holy  scriptures !  From  that  time  all 
ancient  learning  which  was  not  sanctioned  by  the  authority  of 
the  church,  has  been  emphatically  distinguished  a,s  profane  in 
opposition  to  sacred.  This  pope  is  said  to  have  burnt  the 
works  of  Varro,  the  learned  Roman,  that  Saint  Austin  should 
escape  from  the  charge  of  plagiarism,  being  deeply  indebted 
to  Varro  for  much  of  his  great  work  "  the  City  of  God." 


DESTRUCTION   OF   BOOKS.  105 

The  Jesuits,  sent  by  tlie  Emperor  Ferdinand  to  proscribe 
Lutheranism  from  Bohemia,  converted  that  flourishinor  king- 
dom  comparatively  into  a  desert.  Convinced  that  an  en* 
lightened  people  could  never  be  long  subservient  to  a  tyrant, 
they  struck  one  fatal  blow  at  the  national  literature ;  eveiy 
book  they  condemned  was  destroyed,  even  those  of  antiquity  ; 
the  annals  of  the  nation  Avere  forbidden  to  be  read,  and  writ- 
ers were  not  permitted  even  to  compose  on  subjects  of  Bohe- 
mian literature.  The  mother-tongue  was  held  out  as  a  mark 
of  vulgar  obscurity,  and  domiciliary  visits  were  made  for  the 
purpose  of  inspecting  the  libraries  of  the  Bohemians.  With 
their  books  and  their  language  they  lost  their  national  char- 
acter and  their  independence. 

The  destruction  of  libraries  in  the  reign  of  Henr}'  VIII. 
at  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries,  is  wept  over  by  John 
Bale.  Those  who  purchased  the  religious  houses  took  the 
libraries  as  part  of  the  booty,  with  which  they  scoured  their 
furniture,  or  sold  the  books  as  waste  paper,  or  sent  them 
abroad  in  ship-loads  to  foreign  bookbinders. 

The  fear  of  destruction  induced  many  to  hide  manuscripts 
under  ground,  and  in  old  walls.  At  the  Reformation  popular 
rage  exhausted  itself  on  illuminated  books,  or  MSS.  that  had 
red  letters  in  the  title-page ;  any  work  that  was  decorated 
was  sure  to  be  thrown  into  the  flames  as  a  suj)erstitious  one. 
lied  letters  and  embellished  figures  were  sure  marks  of  being 
papistical  and  diabolical.  We  still  find  such  volumes  muti- 
lated of  their  gilt  letters  and  elegant  initials.  Many  have 
been  found  under-ground,  having  been  forgotten  ;  what 
escaped  the  flames  were  obliterated  by  the  damp  :  such  is  the 
deplorable  fate  of  books  during  a  persecution  ! 

The  puritans  burned  every  thing  they  found  which  bore 
the  vestige  of  popish  origin.  We  have  on  record  manv  curious 
accounts  of  their  pious  depredations,  of  their  maiming  images 
and  erasing  pictures.  The  heroic  expeditions  of  one  Dows- 
ing are  journalized  by  himself:  a  fanatical  Quixote,  to  whose 
mtrepid  arm  many  of  our  noseless  saints,  sculptured  on  our 
Cathedrals,  owe  tlifir  Tnisfortunes. 


106  DESTRUCTION  OF  BOOKS. 

The  following  are  some  details  from  the  diary  of  this  re- 
doubtable Goth,  during  his  rage  for  reformation.  His  entries 
are  expressed  with  a  laconic  conciseness,  and  it  would  seem 
with  a  liule  dry  humour.  "At  Stnibury,  we  brake  down  ten 
mighty  great  angels  in  glass.  At  Barham,  brake  down  the 
twelve  apostles  in  the  chancel,  and  six  superstitious  pictures 
more  there ;  and  eight  in  the  church,  one  a  lamb  with  a 
cross  (-f  )  on  the  back ;  and  digged  down  the  steps  and  took 
up  four  superstitious  inscriptions  in  brass,"  &c.  "^  Lady 
Bruce's  house,  the  chapel,  a  picture  of  God  the  Father,  of 
the  Trinity,  of  Christ,  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  cloven  tongues, 
which  we  gave  orders  to  take  down,  and  the  lady  promised 
to  do  it."  At  another  place  they  "  brake  six  hundred  super- 
stitious pictures,  eight  Holy  Ghosts,  and  three  of  the  Son." 
And  in  this  manner  he  and  his  deputies  scoured  one  hundred 
and  fifty  parishes  !  It  has  been  humorously  conjectured,  that 
from  this  ruthless  devastator  originated  the  phrase  to  give  a 
Dowsing.  Bishop  Hall  saved  the  windows  of  his  chapel  at 
Norwich  from  destruction,  by  taking  out  the  heads  of  the 
figures;  and  this  accounts  for  the  many  faces  in  church 
windows  which  we  see  supplied  by  white  glass. 

In  the  various  civil  wars  in  our  country,  numerous  libra- 
ries have  suflTered  both  in  MSS.  and  printed  books.  "I 
dare  maintain,"  says  Fuller,  "  that  the  wars  betwixt  York 
and  Lancaster,  which  lasted  sixty  years,  were  not  so  de- 
structive as  our  modern  wars  in  six  years."  He  alludes  to 
the  parliamentary  feuds  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  "  For 
during  the  former  their  diflx-rences  agreed  in  the  same  re- 
ligion, impressing  them  with  reverence  to  all  allowed 
nuiniments  !  whilst  our  civil  tears,  founded  in  faction  and 
variety  of  pretended  religions,  exposed  all  naked  church 
records  a  prey  to  armed  violence;  a  sad  vacuum,  which 
will  be  sensible  in  our  English  hisforie." 

When  it  was  proposed  to  the  great  Gustavus  of  Sweden  to 
destroy  the  palace  of  the  Dukes  of  Bavaria,  that  hero  nobly 
refused  ;    observing,   "  Let  us  not  copy  the  example  of  our 


DESTRUCTION   OF   BOOKS.  107 

unlettered  ancestors,  who,  by  Wcaging  war  against  evcM-y 
production  of  genius,  liave  rendered  the  name  of  Gotu 
universally   proverbial   of  the   rudest  state  of  barbai-ily." 

Even  the  civilization  of  the  eighteenth  century  could  not 
preserve  from  the  destructive  fury  of  an  infuriated  mob,  m 
the  most  polished  city  of  Europe,  the  valuable  INISS.  of  the 
great  p]arl  of  ]\Iansfield,  which  were  madly  consigned  (o  Uie 
flames  during  the  riots  of  1780;  as  those  of  Dr.  Pi-iesiley 
were  consumed  by  the  mob  at  Binningham. 

In  the  year  1599,  the  Hall  of  the  Stationers  underwent  as 
great  a  purgation  as  was  carried  on  in  Don  Quixote's  library. 
Warton  gives  a  list  of  the  best  writers  who  were  ordered  for 
immediate  conflagration  by  the  prelates  Wliitgift  and  Ban- 
croft, urged  by  the  Puritanical  and  Calvinistic  factions. 
Like  tlueves  and  outlaws,  they  were  ordered  to  be  taken 
wheresoever  they  may  be  found. — "  It  was  also  decreed  that 
no  satires  or  epigrams  should  be  printed  for  the  future.  No 
plays  were  to  be  printed  Avithout  the  inspection  and  per- 
mission of  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  bishop  of 
London ;  nor  any  English  historyes,  I  suppose  novels  and 
romances,  without  the  sanction  of  the  privy  council.  Any 
pieces  of  this  nature,  unlicensed,  or  now  at  large  and  wan- 
dering abroad,  were  to  be  diligently  sought,  recalled,  and 
delivered  over  to  the  ecclesiastical  araa  at  London-house." 

At  a  later  period,  and  by  an  opposite  party,  among  other 
extravagant  motions  made  in  parliament,  one  was  to  destroy 
the  Records  in  the  Tower,  and  to  settle  the  nation  on  a  new 
foundation  !  The  very  same  principle  was  attempted  to  be 
acted  on  in  the  French  Revolution  by  the  "  true  sans-culottes." 
With  us  Sir  Matthew  Hale  showed  the  weakness  of  the  pro- 
tect, and  while  he  drew  on  his  side  "  all  sober  persons,  stojjpcd 
even  the  mouths  of  the  frantic  people  themselves." 

To  descend  to  the  losses  incurred  by  individuals,  whose 
names  ought  to  have  served  as  an  amulet  to  charm  away  the 
demons  of  literary  destruction.  One  of  the  most  interesting 
is  the  fate  of  Aristotle's  library  ;    he  wl  o  by  a  Greek  term 


108  DESTRUCTION   OF  BOOKS. 

was  first  saluted  as  a  collector  of  books !  His  works  have 
come  down  to  us  accidentally,  but  not  without  irreparable 
injuries,  and  with  no  slight  suspicion  respecting  their  authen- 
ticity. The  story  is  told  by  Strabo,  in  his  thirteenth  book. 
The  books  of  Aristotle  came  from  his  scholar  Theophrastus 
to  Neleus,  whose  posterity,  an  illiterate  race,  kept  them  locked 
up  without  using  them,  buried  in  the  earth  !  Apellion,  a 
curious  collector,  purchased  them,  but  finding  the  MSS.  in- 
jured by  age  and  moisture,  conjecturally  supplied  their  de- 
ficiencies. It  is  impossilile  to  know  how  far  Apellion  has 
corrupted  and  obscured  the  text.  But  the  mischief  did  not 
end  here ;  when  Sylla  at  the  taking  of  Athens  brought  them 
to  Rome,  he  consigned  them  to  the  care  of  Tyrannio,  a  gram- 
marian, who  employed  scribes  to  copy  them  ;  he  sufiered 
them  to  pass  through  his  hands  without  correction,  and  took 
great  freedoms  with  them  ;  the  words  of  Sti'abo  are  strong  : 
*'  Ibique  Tyrannionem  grammaticum  iis  usum  atque  (ut  fama 
est)  intercidisse,  ant  invertisse"  He  gives  it  indeed  as  a 
report ;  but  the  fact  seems  confirmed  by  the  state  in  which 
we  find  these  works  :  Averroes  declared  that  he  read  Aris- 
totle forty  times  over  before  he  succeeded  in  perfectly  under- 
standing him  ;  he  pretends  he  did  at  the  one-and-fortieth 
time !  And  to  prove  this,  has  published  five  fohos  of 
commentary ! 

We  have  lost  much  valuable  hterature  by  the  illiberal  or 
malignant  descendants  of  learned  and  ingenious  persons. 
Many  of  Lady  Mary  "Wortley  Montagu's  letters  have 
been  destroyed,  I  am  informed,  by  her  daughter,  who  im- 
agined that  the  family  honours  were  lowered  by  the  addition 
of  those  of  hterature :  some  of  her  best  letters,  recently 
published,  were  found  buried  in  an  old  trank.  It  would 
have  mortified  her  ladyship's  daughter  to  have  heard,  that 
her  mother  was  the  Sevigne  of  Britain. 

At  the  death  of  the  learned  Peiresc,  a  chamber  in  his 
house  filled  with  letters  from  the  most  eminent  scholars  of 
the   age   was  discovered  :    the  learned   in   Europe   had  ad 


DESTRUCTION   OF  BOOKS.  109 

dressed  Peiresc  in  their  difficulties,  who  was  hence  called 
"  the  attorney -general  of  the  republic  of  letters."  The  nig- 
gardly niece,  althoujih  repeateiily  entreated  to  permit  them 
to  be  published,  preferred  to  use  these  learned  epistles  occa- 
sionally to  light  her  fires  ! 

The  MSS.  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci  have  equally  suffered 
from  his  relatives.  When  a  curious  collector  discovered 
some,  he  generously  brought  them  to  a  descendant  of  the 
gi'eat  painter,  who  coldly  observed,  that  "  he  had  a  great 
deal  more  in  the  garret,  which  had  lain  there  for  many  years, 
if  the  rats  had  not  destroyed  them !  "  Nothing  which  this 
great  artist  wrote  but  showed  an  inventive  genius. 

Menage  observes  on  a  friend  having  had  his  library  de- 
stroyed by  fire,  in  which  several  valuable  MSS.  had  per- 
ished, that  such  a  loss  is  one  of  the  greatest  misfortunes  that 
can  happen  to  a  man  of  letters.  This  gentleman  afterwards 
consoled  himself  by  composing  a  little  treatise  De  Bibliothecce 
incendio.  It  must  have  been  sufficiently  curious.  Even  ia 
the  present  day  men  of  letters  are  subject  to  similar  mis- 
fortunes ;  for  though  the  fire-offices  will  insure  books,  they 
will  not  allow  authors  to  value  their  oivii  manuscripts. 

A  fire  in  the  Cottonian  library  shrivelled  and  destroyed 
many  Anglo-Saxon  MSS. — a  loss  now  irreparable.  The 
antiquary  is  doomed  to  spell  hard  and  hardly  at  the  baked 
fragments  that  crumble  in  his  hand. 

Meninsky's  famous  Persian  dictionary  met  with  a  sad  fate. 
Its  excessive  rarity  is  owing  to  the  siege  of  Vienna  by  the 
Turks :  a  bomb  fell  on  the  author's  house,  and  consumed  the 
principal  part  of  his  indefatigable  labours.  Tiiere  are  few 
sets  of  this  high-priced  work  which  do  not  bear  evident  proofs 
of  the  bomb ;  while  many  parts  are  stained  with  the  water 
sent  to  quench  the  fiames. 

The  sufferings  of  an  author  for  the  loss  of  his  manuscripts 
strongly  appear  in  the  case  of  Anthony  Urceus,  a  great 
scholar  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  loss  of  his  papers 
beems  immediately  to  have  been  followed  by  madness.     At 


110  DESTRUCTION   OF   BOOKS. 

Forli,  lie  had  an  apartment  in  the  palace,  and  had  prepared 
an  important  work  for  publication.  His  room  was  dark,  and 
he  generally  wrote  by  lamp-light.  Having  gone  out,  he  left 
the  lamp  burning  ;  the  papers  soon  kindled,  and  his  library 
was  reduced  to  ashes.  As  soon  as  he  heard  the  news,  he 
ran  furiously  to  the  palace,  and  knocking  his  head  violently 
against  the  gate,  uttered  this  blasphemous  language  :  "  Jesus 
Christ,  what  great  crime  have  I  done  !  who  of  those  who 
believed  in  you  have  I  ever  treated  so  ci'uelly  ?  Hear  what 
I  am  saying,  for  I  am  in  earnest,  and  am  resolved.  If  by 
chance  I  should  be  so  weak  as  to  address  myself  to  you  at 
the  point  of  death,  don't  hear  me,  for  I  will  not  be  with  you, 
but  prefer  hell  and  its  eternity  of  torments."  To  which,  by 
the  by,  he  gave  little  credit.  Those  who  heard  these  ravings, 
vainly  tried  to  console  him.  He  quitted  the  town,  and  lived 
franticly,  wandering  about  the  woods  ! 

Ben  Jonson's  Execration  on  Vulcan  was  composed  on  a 
like  occasion  ;  the  fruits  of  twenty  years'  study  were  con- 
sumed in  one  short  hour  ;  our  literature  suffered,  for  among 
some  works  of  imagination  there  were  many  philosophical 
collections,  a  commentary  on  the  poetics,  a  complete  critical 
grammar,  a  life  of  Henry  V.,  his  journey  into  Scotland,  with 
all  his  adventures  in  that  poetical  pilgrimage,  and  a  poem  on 
the  ladies  of  Great  Britain.     What  a  catalogue  of  losses  ! 

Castelvetro,  the  Italian  commentator  on  Aristotle,  having 
heard  that  his  house  was  on  fire,  ran  through  the  streets  ex- 
claiming to  the  people,  alia  Poeiica  !  alia  Poetica  !  To  the 
Poetic !  To  the  Poetic  !  He  was  then  writing  his  com- 
mentary on  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle. 

Several  men  of  letters  have  been  known  to  have  risen 
from  their  death-bed,  to  destroy  their  MSS.  So  solicitous 
have  they  been  not  to  venture  their  posthumous  reputation 
in  the  hands  of  undiscerning  friends.  Colardeau,  the  elegant 
versifier  of  Pope's  epistle  of  Eloisa  to  Abelard,  had  not  yet 
destroyed  what  he  had  written  of  a  translation  of  Tasso. 
At    the    approach   of  death,   he   recollected   his   unfinished 


DESTRUCTION   OF   BOOKS.  HI 

labour  ;  lie  knew  that  his  friends  would  not  have  the  courage 
to  annihilate  one  of  his  works  ;  this  was  leserved  for  him. 
Dj'ing,  he  raised  himself,  and  as  if  animated  by  an  honoura- 
ble action,  he  dragged  himself  along,  and  with  trembling 
hands  seized  his  papers,  and  consumed  them  in  one  sacrifice. 
— I  recollect  another  instance  of  a  man  of  letters,  of  our  own 
country,  who  acted  the  same  part.  He  had  passed  his  life 
in  constant  study,  and  it  was  observed  that  he  had  written 
several  folio  volumes,  which  his  modest  fears  would  not  per- 
mit him  to  expose  to  the  eye  even  of  his  critical  friends.  He 
promised  to  leave  his  labours  to  posterity ;  and  he  seemed 
sometimes,  with  a  glow  on  his  countenance,  to  exult  that 
they  would  not  be  unworthy  of  their  acceptance.  At  his 
death  his  sensibility  took  the  alarm ;  he  had  the  folios 
brought  to  Ids  bed  :  no  one  could  open  them,  for  they  Avere 
closely  locked.  At  the  sight  of  his  favourite  and  mysterious 
labours,  he  paused ;  he  seemed  disturbed  in  his  mind,  while 
he  felt  at  every  moment  his  strength  decaying  ;  suddenly  he 
raised  his  feeble  hands  by  an  etlbrt  of  tirm  resolve,  burnt 
his  papers,  and  smiled  as  the  greedy  Vulcan  licked  up  every 
page.  The  task  exhausted  his  remaining  strength,  and  he 
soon  afterwards  expired.  The  late  Mrs.  Inchbald  had  writ 
ten  her  hfe  in  several  volumes ;  on  her  death-bed,  from  a 
motive  perhaps  of  too  much  delicacy  to  admit  of  any  argu- 
ment, she  requested  a  friend  to  cut  them  into  pieces  before 
her  eyes — not  having  sufficient  strength  left  herself  to  per- 
form this  funereal  office.  These  are  instances  of  what  may 
be  called  the  heroism  of  authors. 

The  republic  of  letters  has  suffered  irreparable  losses  by 
ehipwecks.  Guarino  Veronese,  one  of  those  learned  Ital- 
ians A\ho  travelled  through  Greece  for  the  recovery  of  MSS., 
had  his  perseverance  repaid  by  the  acquisition  of  many  valu- 
able works.  On  his  return  to  Italy  he  was  shipwrecked,  and 
lost  his  treasures  !  So  poignant  was  his  grief  on  this  occa- 
sion that,  according  to  the  relation  of  one  of  his  countrymen, 
his  hair  turned  suddenly  white 


112  SOME  NOTICES   OF   LOST   WORKS. 

About  the  year  1700,  Hudde,  an  opulent  burgomaster  of 
Middleburgli,  animated  solely  by  literary  curiosity,  went  to 
China  to  instruct  himself  in  the  language,  and  in  whatever 
was  remarkable  in  this  singular  people.  He  acquired  the 
skill  of  a  mandarine  in  that  difficult  language  ;  nor  did  the 
form  of  his  Dutch  face  undeceive  the  physiognomists  of 
China.  He  succeeded  to  the  dignity  of  a  mandarine  ;  he 
travelled  through  the  provinces  under  this  character,  and 
returned  to  Europe  with  a  collection  of  observations,  the 
cherished  labour  of  thirty  yeai-s,  and  all  these  were  sunk  in 
the  bottomless  sea. 

The  great  Pinellian  library,  after  the  death  of  its  illus- 
trious possessor,  filled  three  vessels  to  be  conveyed  to  Naples. 
Pursued  by  corsairs,  one  of  the  vessels  was  taken  ;  but  the 
pirates  finding  nothing  on  board  but  books,  they  threw  them 
all  into  the  sea :  such  was  the  fate  of  a  great  portion  of  this 
famous  library.  National  libraries  have  often  perished  at 
sea,  from  the  circumstance  of  conquerors  transporting  them 
into  their  own  kingdoms. 


SOME  NOTICES   OF   LOST  WORKS. 

ALTHODcn  it  is  the  opinion  of  some  critics  that  our  liter 
ary  losses  do  not  amount  to  the  extent  which  others  imagine, 
they  are  however  much  greater  than  they  allow.  Our  se- 
verest losses  are  felt  in  the  historical  province,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  earliest  records,  which  might  not  have  been  the 
least  interesting  to  philosophical  curiosity. 

The  history  of  Phoenicia  by  Sanchoniathon,  supposed  to 
be  a  contemporary  with  Solomon,  now  consists  of  only  a 
few  valuable  fragments  preserved  by  Eusebius.  The  same 
ill  fortime  attends  Manetho's  history  of  Egypt,  and  Berosus's 
histoiy  of  Chaldea.      The  histories  of  these   most  ancient 


SOME  NOTICES   OF   LOST   WORKS.  113 

nations,  however  veiled  in  fables,  would  have  presented  to 
the  philosopher  singular  objects  of  contemplation. 

Of  the  history  of  Polybius,  which  once  contained  forty 
books,  we  have  now  only  five ;  of  the  historical  library  of 
Diodorus  Siculus  fifteen  books  only  remain  out  of  forty  ;  and 
half  of  the  Roman  antiquities  of  Dionysius  Haliearnassensis 
has  perished.  Of  the  eighty  books  of  the  liistory  of  Dion 
Cassius,  twenty-five  only  remain.  The  present  opening  book 
of  Ammianus  Marcellinus  is  entitled  the  fourteenth.  Livy's 
hi-itory  consisted  of  one  hundred  and  forty  books,  and  we 
obly  possess  thirty-five  of  that  pleasing  historian.  What  a 
treasure  has  been  lost  in  the  thirty  books  of  Tacitus !  little 
more  than  four  remain.  Murphy  elegantly  observes,  that 
"  the  reign  of  Titus,  the  delight  of  human  kind,  is  totally 
lost,  and  Domitian  has  escaped  the  vengeance  of  the  histo- 
rian's pen."  Yet  Tacitus  in  fragments  is  still  the  colossal 
torso  of  history.  Velleius  Paterculus,  of  whom  a  fragment 
only  has  reached  us,  we  owe  to  a  single  copy  :  no  other  hav- 
ing ever  been  discovered,  and  which  has  occasioned  the  text 
of  tliis  historian  to  remain  incurably  corrupt.  Taste  and 
criticism  have  certainly  incurred  an  irreparable  loss  in  that 
Treatise  on  the  Causes  of  the  Corruption  of  Eloquence,  by 
Quintilian  ;  which  he  has  himself  noticed  with  so  much  sat- 
isfaction in  his  "  Institutes."  Petrarch  declares,  that  in  his 
youth  he  had  seen  the  works  of  Varro,  and  the  second  Decad 
of  Livy ;  but  all  his  endeavours  to  recover  them  were  fruit- 
less. 

Thijse  are  only  some  of  the  most  known  losses ;  but  in 
reading  contemporary  writers  we  are  perpetually  discovering 
many  important  ones.  We  have  lost  two  precious  works  in 
ancient  biography :  Varro  wrote  the  lives  of  seven  hundred 
illustrious  Romans  ;  and  Atticus,  the  friend  of  Cicero,  com- 
posed another,  on  the  acts  of  the  great  men  among  the 
Romans.  When  we  consider  that  these  writers  lived  famil- 
iarly with  the  finest  geniuses  of  their  times,  and  were  oi)U- 
lent,  hospitable,  and  lovers  of  the  fine  arts,  their  biography 

VOL.   I.  8 


114  SOME  NOTICES   OF   LOST   WORKS. 

and  their  portraits,  which  are  said  to  have  accompanied  them, 
are  feh  as  an  irreparable  loss  to  literatiu'e.  I  suspect  like- 
wise we  have  had  great  losses  of  which  we  are  not  always 
aware  ;  for  in  that  curious  letter  in  which  the  younger  Phny 
describes  in  so  interesting  a  manner  the  sublime  industry,  for 
it  seems  sublime  by  its  magnitude,  of  his  Uncle,*  it  appears 
that  his  Natural  History,  that  vast  register  of  the  wisdom 
and  the  credulity  of  the  ancients,  was  not  his  only  great 
labour ;  for  among  his  other  works  was  a  history  in  twenty 
books,  which  has  entirely  perished.  We  discover  also  the 
works  of  writers,  which,  by  the  accounts  of  them,  appear  to 
have  equalled  in  genius  those  which  have  descended  to  us. 
Pliny  has  feelingly  described  a  poet  of  whom  he  tells  us 
"  his  works  are  never  out  of  my  hands ;  and  whether  I  sit 
down  to  write  any  thing  myself,  or  to  revise  what  I  have 
already  wrote,  or  am  in  a  disposition  to  amuse  myself,  I 
constantly  take  up  this  agreeable  author ;  and  as  often  as  I 
do  so,  he  is  still  new.f"  He  had  before  compared  this  poet 
to  Catullus ;  and  in  a  critic  of  so  fine  a  taste  as  Pliny,  to 
have  cherished  so  constant  an  intercourse  with  the  writings 
of  this  author,  indicates  high  powers.  Instances  of  this  kind 
frequently  occur.  "Who  does  not  regret  the  loss  of  the  Anti- 
cato  of  Csesar? 

The  losses  which  the  poetical  world  has  sustained  are  suffi- 
ciently known  by  those  who  are  conversant  with  the  few 
mvaluable  fragments  of  Menander,  who  might  have  inter- 
ested us  perhaps  more  than  Homer :  for  he  was  evidently 
the  domestic  poet,  and  the  lyre  he  touched  was  formed  of  the 
strings  of  the  human  heart.  He  was  the  painter  of  passions, 
and  the  historian  of  the  manners.  The  opinion  of  Quintilian 
is  confirmed  by  the  golden  fragments  preserved  for  the  Eng- 
lish reader  in  the  elegant  versions  of  Cumberland.  Even  of 
^schylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides,  who  each  wrote  about 
one  hundred  dramas,  seven   only  have  been  preserved  of 

*  Book  m.  Letter  V.  Melmoth's  translation,      t  Book  L  Letter  XVI. 


QUODLIBETS,   OR   SCHOLASTIC   DISQUISITIONS.       115 

iEschylus  and  of  Sophocles,  and  nineteen  of  Euripides.  Of 
the  one  hundred  and  thirty  comedies  of  Phiutus,  we  only 
inherit  twenty  imperfect  ones.  The  remainder  of  Ovid'a 
Fasti  has  never  been  recovered. 

I  believe  that  a  philosopher  would  consent  to  lose  any 
poet  to  regain  an  historian  ;  nor  is  this  unjust,  for  some  future 
})oet  may  arise  to  supply  the  vacant  place  of  a  lost  poet,  but 
it  is  not  so  with  the  historian.  Fancy  may  be  supplied ;  but 
Truth  once  lost  m  the  annals  of  mankind  leaves  a  chasm 
never  to  be  filled. 


QUODLIBETS,  OR   SCHOLASTIC   DISQUISITIONS. 

The  scholastic  questions  were  called  Questiones  Quodlibe 
ticcE ;  and  they  were  generally  so  ridiculous  that  we  have 
retained   the   word    QuodUbet    in   our   vernacular   style,   to 
express   any    thing   ridiculously   subtile ;    something   which 
comes  at  length  to  be  distinguished  into  nothingness, 

"  With  all  the  rash  dexterity  of  wit." 

The  history  of  the  scholastic  philosophy  furnishes  an  in- 
structive theme  ;  it  enters  into  the  history  of  the  human 
mind,  and  fills  a  niche  in  our  literary  annals.  The  works  of 
the  scholastics,  with  the  debates  of  these  QuodUbet arians,  at 
once  show  the  greatness  and  the  littleness  of  the  human  intel- 
lect ;  for  though  they  often  degenerate  into  incredible  al)sur- 
dities,  those  who  have  examined  the  works  of  Thomas  Aqui- 
nas and  Duns  Scotus  have  confessed  their  admiration  of  the 
Herculean  texture  of  brain  which  they  exhausted  in  demol- 
ishing their  aerial  fabrics. 

The  following  is  a  slight  sketch  of  the  school  divinity. 

The  Christian  doctrines  in  the  primitive  ages  of  the  gospel 
were  adapted  to  the  simple  comprehension  of  the  multitude  ; 
metaphysical    subtilties    were   not   even    employed    by    the 


J]  6       QUODLIBETS,   OR  SCHOLASTIC  DISQUISITIONS. 

Fathers,  of  whom  several  are  eloquent.  The  Homilies  ex- 
plained,  by  an  obvious  interpretation,  some  scriptural  point, 
or  inferred,  by  artless  illustration,  some  moral  doctrine. 
When  the  Arabians  became  the  only  learned  people,  and 
their  empire  extended  over  the  greater  part  of  the  known 
world,  they  impressed  their  own  genius  on  those  nations  with 
whom  they  were  allied  as  friends,  or  reverenced  as  masters. 
The  Arabian  genius  was  fond  of  abstruse  studies ;  it  was 
highly  metaphysical  and  mathematical,  for  the  fine  arts  theii 
religion  did  not  permit  tliem  to  cultivate  ;  and  the  first  knowl- 
edge which  modern  Europe  obtained  of  Euclid  and  Aristotle 
was  through  the  medium  of  Latin  translations  of  Arabia 
versions.  The  Clu-istians  in  the  west  received  their  first 
lessons  from  the  Arabians  in  the  east ;  and  Aristotle,  with 
his  Arabic  commentaries,  was  enthroned  in  the  schools  of 
Christendom. 

Then  burst  into  birth  from  the  dark  cave  of  metaphysics,  a 
numerous  and  ugly  spawn  of  monstrous  sects  ;  unnatural  chil- 
dren of  the  same  foul  mother,  who  never  met  but  for  mutual 
destruction.  Religion  became  what  is  called  the  study  of 
Theology ;  and  they  all  attempted  to  reduce  the  worship  of 
God  into  a  system !  and  the  creed  into  a  thesis !  Every 
point  relating  to  religion  was  debated  through  an  endless 
chain  of  infinite  questions,  incomprehensible  distinctions,  with 
differences  mediate  and  immediate,  the  concrete  and  the 
abstract,  a  perpetual  civil  war  carried  on  against  common 
sense  in  all  the  Aristotelian  severity.  There  existed  a  rage 
for  Aristotle ;  and  Melancthon  complains  that  in  sacred 
assemblies  the  ethics  of  Anstotle  were  read  to  the  people 
instead  of  the  gospel.  Aristotle  was  placed  a-head  of  St. 
Paul ;  and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  in  his  works  distinguishes 
him  by  tlie  title  of  "  The  Philosopher ; "  inferring,  doubtless, 
that  no  other  man  could  possibly  be  a  philosopher  who  dis- 
agreed with  Aristotle.  Of  the  blind  rites  paid  to  Aristotle, 
the  anecdotes  of  the  Nominalists  and  Realists  ai-e  noticed  in 
the  article  "  Literary  Controversy  "  in  tliis  work. 


QUODLIBETS,   OR  SCHOLASTIC  DISQIHSITIONS.       117 

Had  their  subtile  questions  and  perpetual  wranglings  only 
been  addressed  to  the  metaphysician  in  his  closet,  and  had 
nothing  but  strokes  of  the  pen  occurred,  the  scholastic  divinity 
would  only  have  formed  an  episode  in  the  calm  narrative  of 
Uterary  history  ;  but  it  has  claims  to  be  registered  in  political 
annals,  from  the  numerous  persecutions  and  tragical  events 
with  which  they  too  long  perplexed  their  followers,  and  dis- 
turbed the  repose  of  Europe.  The  Thomists,  and  the  Scotists, 
the  Occamites,  and  many  others,  soared  into  the  regions  of 
mysticism. 

Peter  Lombard  had  laboriously  compiled,  after  the  cele- 
brated Abelard's  "  Introduction  to  Divinity,"  his  four  books 
of  "  Sentences,"  from  the  writings  of  the  Fathers ;  and  for 
this  he  is  called  "  The  Master  of  Sentences."  These  Sen- 
tences, on  which  we  have  so  many  commentaries,  are  a  col- 
lection of  passages  from  the  Fathers,  the  real  or  apparent 
contradictions  of  whom  he  endeavours  to  reconcile.  But  his 
successors  were  not  satisfied  to  be  mere  commentators  on 
these  "sentences,"  which  they  now  only  made  use  of  as  a 
row  of  pegs  to  hang  on  their  fine-spun  metaphysical  cobwebs. 
They  at  length  collected  all  these  quodlibetical  questions  into 
enormous  volumes,  under  the  terrifying  form,  for  those  who 
have  seen  them,  of  Summaries  of  Divinity  !  They  contrived, 
by  their  chimerical  speculations,  to  question  the  plainest 
truths ;  to  wrest  the  simple  meaning  of  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
and  give  some  appearance  of  truth  to  the  most  ridiculous  and 
monstrous  opinions. 

One  of  the  subtile  questions  which  agitated  the  world  in  the 
tenth  century,  relating  to  dialectics,  was  concerning  miiversals 
(as  for  example,  man,  horse,  dog,  &c.)  signifying  not  this  or 
that  in  particular,  but  all  in  general.  They  distinguished 
universccls,  or  what  we  call  abstract  terms,  by  the  genera  and 
species  rerum ;  and  they  never  could  decide  whether  these 
Vftre  substances — or  names/  That  is,  whether  the  abstract 
idea  we  foi'm  of  a  horse  was  not  really  a  being  as  much  as 
the  horse  we  ride  !     All  this,  and  some  congenial  points  re- 


118       QUODLIBETS,   OR   SCHOLASTIC   DISQUISITIONS. 

specting  the  origin  of  our  ideas,  and  what  ideas  were,  and 
whether  we  really  had  an  idea  of  a  thing  before  we  dis- 
covered the  thing  itself — in  a  word,  what  they  called  univer- 
sals,  and  the  essence  of  universals  ;  of  all  this  nonsense,  on 
which  they  at  length  proceeded  to  accusations  of  heresy,  and 
for  Avliich  many  learned  men  were  excommunicated,  stoned, 
and  what  not,  the  whole  was  derived  from  the  reveries  of 
Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Zeno,  about  the  nature  of  ideas,  than 
which  subject  to  the  present  day  no  discussion  ever  degener- 
ated into  such  insanity.  A  modern  metaphysician  infei*3 
that  we  have  no  ideas  at  all ! 

Of  the  scholastic  divines,  the  most  illustrious  was  Saint 
Thomas  Aquinas,  styled  the  Angelical  Doctor.  Seventeen 
foho  volumes  not  only  testify  his  industry  but  even  his  genius. 
He  was  a  great  man,  busied  all  his  life  with  making  the 
charades  of  metaphysics. 

My  learned  friend  Sharon  Turner  has  favoured  me  with  a 
notice  of  his  greatest  work — his  "  Sum  of  .all  Theology," 
Summa  totius  Theologies^  Paris,  1615.  It  is  a  metaphysico- 
logical  treatise,  or  the  most  abstruse  metaphysics  of  theology. 
It  occupies  above  1250  folio  pages,  of  very  small  close  print 
in  double  columns.  It  may  be  worth  noticing  that  to  this 
work  are  appended  19  folio  pages  of  double  columns  of  errata, 
and  about  200  of  additional  index ! 

The  whole  is  thrown  into  an  Aristotelian  form  ;  the  difficul- 
ties or  questions  are  proposed  first,  and  the  answers  are  then 
appended.  There  are  1 G8  articles  on  Love — 358  on  Angels 
— 200  on  the  Soul — 85  on  Demons — 151  on  the  Intellect — 
134  on  Law — 3  on  the  Catamenia — 237  on  Snis — 17  ou 
Virginity,  and  others  on  a  variety  of  topics. 

The  scholastic  tree  is  covered  with  prodigal  foliage,  but  is 
baiTen  of  fruit ;  and  when  the  scholastics  employed  themselves 
in  solving  the  deepest  mysteries,  their  philosophy  became 
nothing  more  than  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Roman 
Pontiff.  Aquinas  has  composed  358  articles  on  angels,  of 
which  a  few  of  the  heads  have  been  culled  for  the  reader. 


QUODLIBETS,   OR  SCHOLASTIC   DISQUISITIONS.       119 

He  treats  of  angels,  their  substance,  orders,  offices,  natures, 
habits,  «S:c. — as  if  he  himself  had  been  an  old  experienced 
angel ! 

Angels  were  not  before  the  world ! 

Anjiels  might  have  been  before  the  world ! 

Angels  were  created  by  Gtod — They  were  created  imme- 
diately by  hhn — They  were  created  in  the  Empyrean  sk) — 
They  were  created  in  grace — They  were  created  in  imper- 
fect beatitude.  After  a  severe  chain  of  reasoning,  he  shows, 
that  angels  are  incorporeal  compared  to  us,  but  corporeal 
compared  to  God. 

An  angel  is  composed  of  action  and  potentiahty  ;  the  more 
superior  he  is,  he  has  the  less  potentiahty.  They  have  not 
matter  properly.  Every  angel  diffei-s  from  another  angel  in 
species.  An  angel  is  of  the  same  species  as  a  soul.  Angels 
have  not  naturally  a  body  united  to  thtm.  They  may  as- 
sume bodies ;  but  they  do  not  want  to  assume  bodies  for 
themselves,  but  for  us. 

The  bodies  assumed  by  angels  are  of  thick  air. 

The  bodies  they  assume  have  not  the  natural  virtues  which 
they  show,  nor  the  operations  of  hfe,  but  those  which  are 
common  to  inanimate  tilings. 

An  angel  may  be  the  same  mth  a  body. 

In  the  same  body  there  are,  the  soul  formally  giving  being, 
and  operating  natural  operations  ;  and  the  angel  operating 
supernatural  operations. 

Angels  administer  and  govern  every  corporeal  creature. 

God,  an  angel,  and  the  soul,  are  not  contained  in  space, 
but  contain  it. 

Many  angels  cannot  be  in  the  same  space. 

The  motion  of  an  angel  in  space  is  nothing  else  than  dif- 
ferent contacts  of  different  successive  places. 

Tiie  motion  of  an  angel  is  a  succession  of  his  different 
operations. 

His  motion  may  be  continuous  and  discontinuous  as  he 


120       QUODLIBETS,  OE  SCHOLASTIC  DISQUISITIONS. 

The  continuous  motion  of  an  angel  is  necessary  through 
every  medium,  but  may  be  discontinuous  ^^^thout  a  medium. 

The  velocity  of  the  motion  of  an  angel  is  not  according  to 
the  quantity  of  his  strength,  but  according  to  his  will. 

The  motion  of  the  illumination  of  an  angel  is  thi-eefold,  or 
circular,  straight,  and  oblique. 

In  this  account  of  the  motion  of  an  angel  we  are  reminded 
of  the  beautiful  description  of  Milton,  who  mai-ks  it  by  a 
continuous  motion, 

"  Smooth-sliding  without  step." 

The  reader  desirous  of  being  merry  with  Aquinas's  angels 
may  find  them  m  Martinus  Scriblerus,  in  Ch.  VII.  who  in- 
quires if  angels  pass  from  one  extreme  to  another  without 
going  through  the  middle  f  And  if  angels  know  things  more 
clearly  in  a  morning  ?  How  many  angels  can  dance  on  the 
point  of  a  very  fine  needle,  without  jostling  one  another  ? 

All  the  questions  in  Aquinas  are  answered  with  a  subtlety 
of  distinction  more  difficult  to  comprehend  and  remember 
than  many  problems  in  Euchd ;  and  perhaps  a  few  of  the 
best  might  still  be  selected  for  youth  as  curious  exercises  of 
the  understanding.  However,  a  great  part  of  these  peculiai 
productions  are  loaded  with  the  most  trifling,  irreverent,  and 
even  scandalous  discussions.  Even  Aquinas  could  gravely 
debate.  Whether  Christ  was  not  an  hermaphrodite  ?  Whether 
there  are  excrements  m  Paradise?  Whether  the  pious  at 
the  resurrection  will  rise  with  their  bowels  ?  Others  again 
debated — Whether  the  angel  Gabriel  appeared  to  the  Virgin 
Mary  in  the  shape  of  a  serpent,  of  a  dove,  of  a  man,  or  of  a 
woman  ?  Did  he  seem  to  be  young  or  old  ?  In  what  dress 
was  he  ?  Was  his  garment  white  or  of  two  colours  ?  Was 
his  linen  clean  or  foul  ?  Did  he  appear  in  the  morning, 
noon,  or  evening?  "WTiat  was  the  colour  of  the  Virgin 
Mary's  hair  ?  Was  she  acquainted  with  the  mechanic  and 
liberal  arts?  Had  she  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  Book 
of  Sentences,  and  all  it  contains  ?  that  is,  Peter  Lombard's 


QUODLIBETS,   OR   SCHOLASTIC   DISQUISITIONS.       121 

compihition  from  the  works  of  the  Fathers,  written  1200 
years  after  her  death. — But  these  are  only  trilling  matters : 
they  also  agitated,  AVhcther  when  during  her  conception  the 
Virgin  was  seated,  Christ  too  was  seated ;  and  whether  when 
she  lay  down,  Christ  also  lay  down  ?  The  following  question 
was  a  favourite  topic  for  discussion,  and  the  acutest  logicians 
never  resolved  it :  "  When  a  hog  is  carried  to  market  with  a 
rope  tied  about  his  neck,  which  is  held  at  the  other  end  by  a 
man,  whether  is  the  hog  carried  to  market  by  the  rope  or  the 
man  ?  " 

In  the  tenth  centuiy,*  after  long  and  ineffectual  contro- 
versy about  the  real  presence  of  Christ  in  the  Sacrament, 
they  at  length  universally  agreed  to  sign  a  peace.  This 
mutual  forbearance  must  not  however  be  ascribed  to  the 
prudence  and  virtue  of  those  times.  It  was  mere  ignorance 
and  incapacity  of  reasoning  which  kept  the  peace,  and  de- 
terred them  from  entering  into  debates  to  which  they  at 
length  found  themselves,  unequal ! 

Lord  Lyttleton,  in  his  Life  of  Henry  II.,  laments  the  un- 
happy effects  of  the  scholastic  philosophy  on  the  progress  of 
the  human  mind.  The  minds  of  men  were  turned  from  clas- 
sical studies  to  the  subtilties  of  school  divinity,  which  Rome 
encouraged,  as  more  profitable  for  the  maintenance  of  her 
doctrines.  It  was  a  great  misfortune  to  religion  and  to  learn- 
ing, that  men  of  such  acute  understandings  as  Abelard  and 
liombard,  who  might  have  done  much  to  refonn  the  errors 
of  the  church,  and  to  restore  science  in  Europe,  should  have 
depraved  both,  by  applying  their  admirable  parts  to  weave 
I  hose  cobwebs  of  so})histry,  and  to  confound  the  clear  sim- 
plicity of  evangelical  truths,  by  a  false  philosophy  and  a 
captious  logic. 

*  Jortin's  Remarks  on  Ecclesiastical  History,  Vol.  V.  p.  17. 


122  TFIE   SIX    FOLLIES   OP   SCIENCE. 


FAME  CONTEMNED. 

All  men  are  fond  of  glory,  and  even  those  philosophers 
who  wrote  against  that  noble  passion  prefix  their  names  to 
their  own  works.  It  is  worthy  of  observation  that  the  authors 
of  two  religious  books,  universally  received,  have  concealed 
their  names  from  the  world.  The  "  Imitation  of  Christ "  is 
attributed,  without  any  authority,  to  Thomas  A'Kempis;  and 
the  author  of  the  "•  Whole  Duty  of  Man  "  still  remains  undis- 
covered. Millions  of  their  books  have  been  dispersed  in  the 
Christian  world. 

To  have  revealed  their  names  would  have  given  them  as 
much  worldly  fame  as  any  moralist  has  obtained  —  but  they 
contemned  it !  Their  religion  was  raised  above  all  worldly 
passions  !  Some  profane  writers  indeed  have  also  concealed 
their  names  to  great  works,  but  their  motives  were  of  a  very 
diiferent  cast. 


THE   SIX  FOLLIES  OF   SCIENCE. 

Nothing  is  so  capable  of  disordering  the  intellects  as  an 
intense  application  to  any  one  of  these  six  things :  the  Quad- 
rature of  the  Circle ;  the  Multiplication  of  the  Cube ;  the 
I'erpetual  Motion  ;  the  Philosophical  Stone ;  Magic ;  and 
Judicial  Astrology.  "  It  is  proper,  hovvever,"  Fontenelle 
remarks,  "  to  apply  one's  self  to  these  inquiries ;  because  we 
find,  as  we  proceed,  many  valuable  discoveries  of  which  we 
were  before  ignorant."  The  same  thought  Cowley  has  ap- 
plied, in  an  address  to  his  mistress,  thus — 

"  Although  I  think  thou  never  wilt  be  found, 
Yet  I'm  resolved  to  search  for  thee: 
The  search  itself  rewards  the  pains. 
So  though  the  chyniist  his  great  secret  miss, 


THE   SIX   FOLLIKS   OF   SCIENCE.  123 

(For  neither  it  in  art  nor  nature  is) 

Yet  tilings  well  worth  his  toil  he  fcains; 
And  does  his  charge  and  labour  pay 
AVith  good  unsought  experiments  by  the  way." 

The  same  thought  is  in  Donne  ;  perhaps  Cowley  did  not 
suspect  that  he  was  an  imitator;  Fontenelle  could  not  have 
read  either  ;  he  struck  out  the  thought  by  his  own  rellcction. 
Glauber  searched  long  and  deeply  tor  the  philosopher's 
Btone,  which  though  he  did  not  find,  yet  in  his  researches 
he  discovered  a  very  useful  purging  salt,  which  bears  his 
name. 

Maupertuis  observes  on  the  PhilosopJdcal  Stone,  that  we 
cannot  prove  the  impossibiHty  of  obtaining  it,  but  we  can 
easily  see  the  folly  of  those,  who  employ  their  time  and 
money  in  seeking  for  it.  This  price  is  too  great  to  counter- 
btilance  the  little  probability  of  succeeding  in  it.  However, 
it  is  still  a  bantling  of  modern  chemistry,  who  has  nodded 
very  affectionately  on  it ! — Of  the  Perpetual  Motion,  he 
shows  the  impossibility,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  generally 
received.  On  the  Quadrature  of  the  Circle,  he  says  he 
cannot  decide  if  this  problem  be  resolvable  or  not :  but  he 
observes,  that  it  is  very  useless  to  search  for  it  any  more ; 
since  we  have  arrived  by  approximation  to  such  a  point  of 
accuracy,  that  on  a  large  circle,  such  as  the  orbit  which  the 
earth  describes  round  the  sun,  the  geometrician  will  not  mis- 
take by  the  thickness  of  a  hair.  The  quadrature  of  the  circle 
is  still,  however,  a  favourite  game  of  some  visionaries,  and 
several  are  still  imagining  that  they  have  discovered  the 
perpetual  motion  ;  the  ItJilians  nick-name  them  matto  pcr- 
petuo  ;  and  Bekker  tells  us  of  the  fate  of  one  Hartmann,  of 
Leipsic,  who  was  in  such  despair  at  having  passed  his  life  sc 
vainly,  in  studying  the  perpetual  motion,  that  at  length  he 
handed  himself! 


124  IMTATORS. 


IMITATORS. 


Some  writers,  usually  pedants,  imagine  that  they  can 
supply,  by  the  labours  of  industry,  the  deficiencies  of  nature. 
Paul  us  Manutius  frequently  spent  a  month  in  writing  a  single 
letter.  He  affected  to  imitate  Cicero.  But  although  he 
painfully  attained  to  something  of  the  elegance  of  his  style, 
destitute  of  the  native  graces  of  unaffected  composition,  he 
was  one  of  those  whom  Erasmus  bantered  in  his  Cice- 
ronianvs,  as  so  slavishly  devoted  to  Cicero's  style,  that  they 
ridiculously  employed  the  utmost  precautions  when  they  were 
seized  by  a  Ciceronian  fit.  The  Nosoponus  of  Erasmus  tells 
us  of  his  devotion  to  Cicero  ;  of  his  three  indexes  to  all  his 
words,  and  his  never  writing  but  in  the  dead  of  night,  em- 
ploying months  upon  a  few  lines  ;  and  his  religious  veneration 
for  words,  with  his  total  indifference  about  the  sense. 

Le  Brun,  a  Jesuit,  was  a  singuhu*  instance  of  such  un- 
happy imitation.  He  was  a  Latin  poet,  and  his  themes 
were  religious.  He  formed  the  extravagant  project  of  sub- 
stituting a  religiotis  Virgil  and  Oind  merely  by  adapting  his 
works  to  their  titles.  His  Ghristian  Virgil  consists,  like  the 
Pagan  Virgil,  of  Eclogues,  Georgics,  and  of  an  Epic  of  twelve 
books ;  with  this  difference,  that  devotional  subjects  are  sub- 
stituted for  fabulous  ones.  His  epic  is  the  Ignaciad,  or  the 
pilgrimage  of  Saint  Ignatius.  His  Christian  Ovid  is  in  the 
same  taste  ;  every  thing  wears  a  new  face.  His  Epistlos  are 
pious  ones  ;  the  Fasti  are  the  six  days  of  the  Creation  ,  the 
Elegies  are  the  Lamentations  of  Jeremiah ;  a  poem  on  the 
Love  of  God  is  substituted  for  the  Art  of  Love  ;  and  the 
history  of  some  Conversions  supplies  the  place  of  the  Meta- 
morphoses !  This  Jesuit  would,  no  doubt,  have  approved  of 
a  family  Shahspeare  ! 

A  poet  of  far  different  character,  the  elegant  Sannazarius, 
has  done  much  the  same  thing  in  his  poem  De  Partu  Vir- 
ginis.     The  same  servile  imitat'on  of  ancient  taste  appears. 


imXATORS.  12,') 

It  professes  to  celebrate  the  birth  of  C//rist,  yet  his  name  ia 
not  once  mentioned  in  it !  The  Virgin  herself  is  styled  spes 
deornni  !  "  The  liope  of  the  gods  ! "  The  Incarnation  is 
predicted  by  Proteus !  The  Virgin,  instead  of  consulting 
the  sacred  writings,  reads  the  Sibylline  oracles!  Her  at- 
tendants are  dryads,  nereids,  &c.  This  monstrous  mixture 
of  polytheism  with  the  mysteries  of  Cliristianity  appeared  in 
every  tiling  he  had  about  him.  In  a  chapel  at  one  of  liis 
country  seats  he  had  two  statues  placed  at  his  tomb,  Apollo 
and  jMinerva  ;  catholic  piety  found  no  difficulty  in  the  pres- 
ent case,  as  well  as  in  innumerable  others  of  the  same  kind, 
to  inscribe  the  statue  of  Apollo  with  the  name  of  David,  and 
that  of  Minerva  with  the  female  one  of  Judith  ! 

Seneca,  in  his  1 1 4th  Epistle,  gives  a  curious  literary  anecdote 
of  the  sort  of  imitation  by  which  an  inferior  mind  becomes 
the  monkey  of  an  origuial  Avriter.  At  Rome,  when  Sallust 
was  the  fashionable  winter,  short  sentences,  uncommon  words, 
and  an  obscure  brevity  were  affected  as  so  many  elegances. 
Arruntius,  who  wrote  the  history  of  the  Punic  Wars,  pain- 
fully laboured  to  imitate  Sallust.  Expressions  which  are  rare 
in  Sallust  are  frequent  in  Arruntius,  and,  of  course,  without 
the  motive  that  induced  Sallust  to  adopt  them.  What  rose 
naturally  under  the  pen  of  the  great  historian,  the  minor  one 
must  have  run  after  with  ridiculous  anxiety.  Seneca  adds 
several  instances  of  the  servile  affectation  of  Arruntius,  which 
seem  much  like  those  we  once  had  of  Johnson,  by  the  undis- 
cerning  herd  of  his  apes. 

One  cannot  but  smile  at  these  imitators  ;  we  have  abounded 
with  them.  In  the  days  of  Churchill,  every  month  produced 
an  effusion  which  tolerably  imitated  his  slovenly  versification, 
his  coarse  invective,  and  his  careless  mediocrity — but  the 
genius  remained  with  the  English  .Juvenal.  Sterne  had  his 
countless  multitude  ;  and  in  Fielding's  time,  Tom  Jones  pro- 
duced more  bastards  in  wit  than  the  author  could  ever  sus- 
pect. To  such  literary  echoes,  the  reply  of  Philip  of  Macedon 
tL  one  who  prided  himself  on  imitating  the  notes  of  the  nigh> 


120  CICERO'S  PUNS. 

iiigale  may  be  applied :  "I  prefer  the  nightingale  herself!" 
Even  the  most  successful  of  this  imitating  tribe  must  be 
doomed  to  share  the  fate  of  Silius  Italicus  in  liis  cold  imita- 
tion of  V^irgil,  and  Cawthorne  in  his  empty  harmony  of  Pope. 
To  all  these  imitators  I  must  apply  an  Arabian  anecdote. 
Kbn  Saad,  one  of  Mahomet's  amanuenses,  "when  writing 
what  the  prophet  dictated,  cried  out  by  way  of  admiration — 
"  Blcsi;ed  be  God,  the  best  Creator !  "  Mahomet  approved 
of  the  expression,  and  desired  him  to  write  those  words  down 
as  part  of  the  inspired  passage. — The  consequence  ^ras,  that 
Ebn  Saad  began  to  think  himself  as  great  a  prophet  as  his 
master,  and  took  upon  himself  to  imitate  the  Koran  according 
to  his  fancy  ;  but  the  imitator  got  himself  into  trouble,  and 
only  escaped  with  life  by  falling  on  his  knees,  and  solemnly 
swearing  he  would  never  again  imitate  the  Koran,  for  which 
Jie  was  sensible  God  had  never  created  him. 


CICERO'S  PUNS. 

"I  SHOULD,"  says  Menage,  "  have  received  great  pleasure 
to  have  conversed  with  Cicero,  had  I  lived  in  his  time.  He 
must  have  been  a  man  very  agreeable  in  conversation,  since 
even  Ctesar  carefully  collected  his  bons  mots.  Cicero  has 
boasted  of  the  great  actions  he  has  done  for  his  country, 
because  there  is  no  vanity  in  exulting  in  the  performance 
of  our  duties ;  but  he  has  not  boasted  that  he  was  the  most 
eloquent  orator  of  his  age,  though  he  certainly  was  ;  because 
nothing  is  more  disgusting  than  to  exult  in  our  intellectual 
powers." 

"Wliatever  were  the  bons  mots  of  Cicero,  of  which  few  have 
come  down  to  us,  it  is  certain  that  Cicero  was  an  inveterate 
punster ;  and  he  seems  to  have  been  more  ready  with  them 
than  with  rejiartees.  He  said  to  a  senator,  who  was  the 
son  of  a  tailor,  "  Rem  acu  tctigisti.'"     You  have  touched  it 


CICEKO'S  PUNS.  127 

5ihar7)ly ;  acu  means  shai-pness  as  well  as  the  point  of  a 
needle.  To  the  son  of  a  cook,  "  Ego  quoque  tibi  jure  fa- 
veho"  The  ancients  pronounced  coce  and  quoque  like  co-/:e, 
which  alludes  to  the  Latin  eoctis,  qook,  besides  the  ambi<>;uity 
of  jure,  which  applies  to  broth  ov  law— jus.  A  Sicilian  sns- 
jiectod  of  being  a  Jew,  attempted  to  get  tlie  cause  of  Veiies 
into  his  own  hands  ;  Cicero,  who  knew  that  he  was  a  creatuie 
of  the  great  culprit,  opposed  hiui,  observing  "  What  has  a 
Jew  to  do  with  swine's  flesh  ?  "  The  Romans  called  a  bt>ar 
pig  Verres.  I  regi'et  to  afford  a  respectable  authority  for 
forensic  puns  ;  however,  to  have  degraded  his  adversaries  by 
such  petty  personalities,  only  proves  that  Cicero's  taste  was 
not  exquisite. 

There  is  something  very  original  in  Montaigne's  censure 
of  Cicero.     Cotton's  translation  is  admirable. 

"Boldly  to  confess  the  truth,  his  way  of  writing,  and  that 
(rf  all  other  long-winded  authors,  appears  to  me  very  tedious ; 
for  his  preface,  definitions,  divisions,  and  etymologies,  take  up 
the  gi*eatest  part  of  his  work :  whatever  there  is  of  life  and 
marrow,  is  smothered  and  lost  in  the  preparation.  When  I 
have  spent  an  hour  in  reading  him,  which  is  a  great  deal  for 
me,  and  recollect  what  I  have  thence  extracted  of  juice  and 
substance,  for  the  most  part  I  find  nothing  but  wind  :  for  he 
is  not  yet  come  to  the  arguments  that  serve  to  his  purpose, 
and  the  reasons  that  should  properly  help  to  loose  the  knot  1 
would  untie.  For  me,  who  only  desired  to  become  more  wise, 
not  more  learned  or  eloquent,  these  logical  or  Aristotehan  dis- 
quisitions of  poets  are  of  no  use.  I  look  for  good  and  solid  rea- 
sons at  the  fii-st  dash.  I  am  for  discourses  that  give  the  first 
chaige  into  the  heart  of  the  doubt ;  his  languish  about  the  sub- 
ject, and  delay  our  expectation.  Those  are  jjroper  for  the 
6cho<jls,  for  the  bar,  and  for  the  pulpit,  where  we  have  leisure  to 
nod,  and  may  awake  a  quarter  of  an  hour  after,  time  enough  to 
find  again  the  thread  of  the  discourse.  It  is  necessary  to 
speak  after  this  manner  to  judges,  whom  a  man  has  a  design, 
right  or  wrong,  to  incline  to  favour  his  cause ;  to  children  and 


128  TREFACES. 

common  people,  to  whom  a  man  must  say  all  he  can.  I 
would  not  have  an  author  make  it  his  business  to  render  me 
attentive  ;  or  that  he  should  cry  out  fifty  times  0  yes  !  as  the 
clerks  and  heralds  do. 

"  As  to  Cicero,  I  am  of  the  common  opinion  that,  learning 
excepted,  he  had  no  great  natural  parts.  He  was  a  good 
citizen,  of  an  affable  nature,  as  all  fat  heavy  men — (g^as  et 
gausseuTs  are  the  words  in  the  original,  meaning  perhaps 
broad  jokers,  for  Cicei'o  was  not  fat) — such  as  he  was,  usually 
are  ;  but  given  to  ease,  and  had  a  mighty  share  of  vanity 
and  ambition.  Neither  do  I  know  how  to  excuse  him  for 
thinking  his  poetry  fit  to  be  published.  'T  is  no  great  imper- 
fection to  write  ill  verses  ;  but  it  is  an  imperfection  not  to  be 
able  to  judge  how  unworthy  bad  verses  were  of  the  glory  of 
his  name.  For  what  concerns  his  eloquence,  that  is  totally 
out  of  comparison,  and  I  believe  will  never  be  equalled." 


PREFACES. 

A  PREFACE,  being  the  entrance  to  a  book,  should  invite  by 
its  beauty.  An  elegant  porch  announces  the  splendour  of  the 
interioi*.  I  have  observed  that  ordinary  readers  skip  over 
these  little  elaborate  compositions.  The  ladies  consider  them 
as  so  many  pages  lost,  which  might  better  be  employed  in  the 
addition  of  a  picturesque  scene,  or  a  tender  letter  to  their 
novels.  For  my  part  I  always  gather  amusement  from  a 
preface,  be  it  awkwardly  or  skilfully  written  ;  for  dulness,  or 
impertinence,  may  raise  a  laugh  for  a  page  or  two.  A  pref- 
ace is  frequently  a  superior  composition  to  the  work  itself: 
for,  long  before  the  days  of  Johnson,  it  had  been  a  custom  for 
many  authors  to  solicit  for  this  department  of  their  work  the 
ornamental  contribution  of  a  man  of  genius.  Cicero  tells  his 
friend  Atticus,  that  he  had  a  volume  of  prefaces  or  introduc- 
tions always  ready  by  him  to   be  used  as   circumstances  re 


PREFACES.  129 

quired.  These  must  have  been  like  our  periodical  essays. 
A  good  preface  is  as  essential  to  put  the  reader  into  good 
humour,  as  a  good  prologue  is  to  a  play,  or  a  fine  symphony 
to  an  opera,  containing  something  analogous  to  the  work 
itself;  so  that  we  may  feel  its  want  as  a  desire  not  elsewhere 
to  be  gratified.  The  Italians  call  the  preface  La  salsa  del 
libra,  the  sauce  of  the  book,  and  if  well  seasoned  it  creates 
an  appetite  in  the  reader  to  devour  the  book  itself.  A 
preface  badly  composed  prejudices  the  reader  against  the 
work.  Authors  are  not  equally  fortunate  in  these  little  intro- 
ductions; some  can  compose  volumes  more  skilfully  than 
prefaces,  and  others  can  finish  a  preface  who  could  never  be 
capable  of  finishing  a  book. 

On  a  very  elegant  preface  prefixed  to  an  ill-written  book, 
it  was  observed  that  they  ought  never  to  have  come  together  ; 
but  a  sarcastic  wit  remarked  that  he  considered  such  mar- 
riages were  allowable,  for  they  were  not  of  kin. 

In  prefaces  an  affected  haughtiness  or  an  affected  iiumility 
are  alike  despicable.  There  is  a  deficient  dignity  in  Robert- 
son's ;  but  the  haughtiness  is  now  to  our  purpose.  This  is 
called  by  the  French,  " la  morgue  litteraire"  the  surly  pom- 
posity of  literature.  It  is  sometimes  used  by  writers  who 
have  succeeded  in  their  first  work,  while  the  failure  of  their 
subsequent  productions  appears  to  have  gi\  en  them  a  literary 
hypochondriasm.  Dr.  Armstrong,  after  his  classical  poem, 
ne\er  shook  hands  cordially  with  the  public  for  not  relishing 
his  barren  labours.  In  the  preface  to  his  lively  "  Sketches  " 
he  tells  us,  "  he  could  give  them  much  bolder  strokes  as  well 
as  more  deHcate  touches,  but  that  he  dreads  the  danger  of 
writing  too  well,  and  feels  the  value  of  his  own  labour  too 
sensibly  to  bestow  it  upon  the  mobility"  This  is  pure  milk 
compared  to  the  gall  in  the  preface  to  his  poems.  There  he 
tells  us,  "  that  at  last  he  has  taken  the  trouble  to  collect  them  ! 
What  he  has  destroyed  would,  probably  enough,  have  been 
better  received  by  the  great  majority  of  readers.  But  he  has 
always  most  heartily  despised  their  opinion."     These  prefaces 


X30  EARLY  PRINTING. 

remind  one  of  the  prologi  galeati,  prefaces  with  a  helmet !  as 
St.  Jerome  entitles  the  one  to  his  Version  of  the  Scriptures. 
These  armed  prefaces  were  formerly  very  common  in  the 
age  of  literary  controversy ;  for  half  the  business  of  an 
author  consisted  then,  either  in  replying,  cr  anticipating  a 
reply  to  the  attacks  of  his  opponent. 

Prefaces  ought  to  be  dated ;  as  these  become,  after  a  series 
of  editions,  leading  and  useful  circumstances  in  literary 
history. 

Fuller  with  quaint  humour  observes  on  Indexes — "An 
Index  is  a  necessary  implement,  and  no  impediment  of  a 
book,  except  in  the  same  sense  wherein  the  carriages  of  an 
army  are  termed  Impedimenta.  Without  this,  a  large  author 
is  but  a  labyrinth  without  a  clue  to  direct  the  reader  therein. 
I  confess  there  is  a  lazy  kind  of  learning  which  is  only  Indi- 
cal ;  when  scholars  (like  adders  which  only  bite  the  horse's 
heels)  nibble  but  at  the  tables,  which  are  calces  lihrorum, 
neglecting  the  body  of  the  book.  But  though  the  idle  deserve 
no  crutches  (let  not  a  staff  be  used  by  them,  but  on  them), 
pity  it  is  the  weary  should  be  denied  the  benefit  thereof,  and 
industrious  scholars  prohibited  the  accommodation  of  an  index, 
most  used  by  those  who  most  pretend  to  contemn  it." 


EARLY  PRINTING. 

There  is  some  probability  that  this  art  originated  in  China, 
where  it  was  practised  long  before  it  was  known  in  Europe. 
Some  I^uropean  traveller  might  have  imported  the  hint. 
That  the  Romans  did  not  practise  the  art  of  printing  cannot 
but  excite  our  astonishment,  since  they  actually  used  it,  un- 
conscious of  their  rich  possession.  I  have  seen  Roman 
stereotypes,  or  immovable  printing  types,  with  which  they 
stamped  their  pottery.  How  in  daily  practising  the  art, 
though  confined  to  this  object,  it  did  not  occur  to  so  ingenious 


EARLY  PRINTING.  13] 

a  people  to  print  their  literarj  works,  is  not  easily  to  be 
accounted  for.  Did  the  wise  and  grave  senate  dread  those 
inconveniences  which  attend  its  indiscriminate  use  ?  Or  per- 
haps they  did  not  care  to  deprive  so  large  a  body  of  scribes 
of  their  business.  Not  a  hint  of  the  art  itself  appears  in 
their  writings. 

,  When  first  the  art  of  printing  was  discovered,  they  only 
made  use  of  one  side  of  a  leaf;  they  had  not  yet  found  out 
the  expedient  of  impressing  the  other.  Afterwards  they 
thought  of  pasting  the  blank  sides,  which  made  them  appear 
like  one  leaf.  Their  blocks  were  made  of  soft  woods,  and 
their  letters  were  carved ;  but  frequently  breaking,  the  ex- 
pense and  trouble  of  carving  and  gluing  new  letters  suggested 
our  movable  types,  which  have  produced  an  almost  miracu 
lous  celerity  in  this  art.  The  modern  stereotype,  consisting 
of  entire  pages  in  solid  blocks  of  metal,  and,  not  being  liable 
to  break  like  the  soft  wood  at  first  used,  has  been  profitably 
employed  for  works  which  require  to  be  frequently  reprinted. 
Printing  in  carved  blocks  of  wood  must  have  greatly  retarded 
the  progress  of  universal  knowledge :  for  one  set  of  types 
could  only  have  produced  one  work,  whereas  it  now  serves 
for  hundreds. 

When  their  editions  were  intended  to  be  curious,  they 
omitted  to  print  the  initial  letter  of  a  chapter ;  they  left  that 
blank  space  to  be  painted  or  illuminated,  to  the  fancy  of  the 
purchaser.  Several  ancient  volumes  of  these  early  times 
have  been  found  wliere  these  letters  are  wanting,  as  they 
neglected  to  have  them  painted. 

The  initial  carved  letter,  which  is  generally  a  fine  wood- 
cut, among  our  printed  books,  is  evidently  a  remains  or  imi- 
tation of  these  ornaments.  Among  the  very  earliest  books 
printed,  which  were  religious,  the  Poor  Man's  Bible  lias 
wooden  cut^  in  a  coarse  style,  without  the  least  shadowing  or 
crossing  of  strokes,  and  these  they  inek^gantly  daubed  over 
with  broad  colours,  whicii  they  termed  illuminating,  and  sold 
at  a  cheap  rate  to  those  who  could   not  afford  to   purchase 


132  EARLY  PRINTING. 

cost!}'  missals  elegantly  written  and  painted  on  vellum. 
Specimens  of  these  rude  efforts  of  illuminated  prints  may  be 
Been  in  Strutt's  Dictionary  of  Engravers.  The  Bodleian 
library  possesses  the  originals. 

In  the  productions  of  early  printing  may  be  distinguished 
the  various  splendid  editions  of  Primers,  or  Prayer-books. 
These  were  embellished  with  cuts  finished  in  a  most  elegant 
taste  :  many  of  them  were  grotesque  or  obscene.  In  one  of 
them  an  angel  is  represented  crowning  the  Virgin  Mary,  and 
God  the  Father  himself  assisting  at  the  ceremony.  Some- 
times St.  Michael  is  overcoming  Satan ;  and  sometimes  St. 
Anthony  is  attacked  by  various  devils  of  most  clumsy  forms 
— not  of  the  grotesque  and  limber  family  of  Callot ! 

Printing  was  gradually  practised  throughout  Europe  from 
the  year  1440  to  1500.  Caxton  and  his  successor  Wynkyn 
de  Worde  were  our  own  earliest  printers.  Caxton  was  a 
wealthy  merchant,  who,  in  1464,  being  sent  by  Edward  IV. 
to  negotiate  a  commercial  treaty  with  the  Duke  of  Burgundy, 
returned  to  his  country  with  this  invaluable  art.  Notwith- 
standing his  mercantile  habits,  he  possessed  a  literary  taste, 
and  his  first  work  was  a  translation  from  a  French  historical 
miscellany. 

The  ti'adition  of  the  Devil  and  Dr.  Faustus  was  said  to 
have  been  derived  from  the  odd  circumstance  in  which  the 
Bibles  of  the  fii'st  printer,  Fust,  appeared  to  the  world ;  but 
if  Dr.  Faustus  and  Faustus  the  printer  are  two  different 
persons,  the  tradition  becomes  suspicious,  though,  in  some 
respects,  it  haa  a  foundation  in  truth.  When  Fust  had  dis- 
covered this  new  art,  and  printed  off  a  considerable  number 
of  copies  of  the  Bible  to  imitate  those  which  were  commonly 
sold  as  MSS.,  he  undertook  the  sale  of  them  at  Pari:;.  It 
was  his  interest  to  conceal  this  discovery,  and  to  pass  off  his 
printed  copies  for  MSS.  But,  enabled  to  sell  his  Bibles  at 
sixty  crowns,  while  the  other  scribes  demanded  five  hundred, 
this  raised  universal  astonishment;  and  still  more  when  he 
produced  copies  as  fast  as  they  were  wanted,  and  even  low- 


EAKLY  PRINTIXG.  133 

ered  his  price.  The  uniformity  of  the  copies  increased  the 
wonder.  Informations  were  given  in  to  the  magistrates 
against  him  as  a  magician  ;  and  in  searching  his  lodgings  a 
great  number  of  copies  were  found.  The  red  ink,  and  Fust's 
red  ink  is  pecuharly  brilHant,  which  embeUished  his  copies,  was 
said  to  be  his  blood  ;  and  it  was  solemnly  adjudged  that  he 
was  in  league  ^Wth  the  Infemals.  Fust  at  length  was  obliged, 
to  save  himself  from  a  bonfire,  to  reveal  his  art  to  the  Par- 
liament of  Paris,  who  discharged  him  from  all  prosecution  in 
consideration  of  the  wondei"ful  mvention. 

When  the  art  of  printing  was  established,  it  became  the 
glory  of  the  learned  to  be  correctors  of  the  press  to  eminent 
printers.  Physicians,  la^vyers,  and  bishops  themselves  occu- 
pied this  department.  The  printers  then  added  frequently 
to  their  names  those  of  the  correctors  of  the  press  ;  and 
editions  were  then  valued  according  to  the  abihties  of  the 
corrector. 

The  prices  of  books  in  these  times  were  considered  as  an 
object  worthy  of  the  animadversions  of  the  highest  powers. 
Tliis  anxiety  in  favour  of  the  studious  appears  from  a  privi- 
lege of  Pope  Leo  X.  to  Aldus  Manutius  for  printing  VaiTO, 
dated  1553,  signed  Cardinal  Bembo.  Aldus  is  exhorted  to 
put  a  moderate  price  on  the  work,  lest  the  Pope  should  with- 
draw his  privilege,  and  accord  it  to  others. 

Robert  Stephens,  one  of  the  early  printers,  surpassed  in 
correctness  those  who  exercised  the  same  profession. 

To  render  his  editions  immaculate,  he  hung  up  the  proofs 
in  public  places,  and  generously  recompensed  those  who  were 
80  fortunate  as  to  detect  any  errata. 

Plantin,  though  a  learned  man,  is  more  famous  as  a  printer. 
His  printing-olRce  was  one  of  the  wonders  of  Europe.  This 
grand  building  was  the  chief  ornament  of  the  city  of  Ant- 
werp. Magnificent  in  its  structure,  it  presented  to  the  spec- 
tator a  countless  number  of  presses,  characters  of  all  figures 
and  all  sizes,  matrixes  to  cast  letters,  and  all  other  printing 
materials  ;  wliich  Baillet  assures  us  amounted  to  immease 
Bums. 


134  EARLY  PRINTING. 

In  Italy,  the  three  Manutii  were  more  solicitous  of  correct- 
ness and  illustrations  than  of  the  beauty  of  their  printing. 
They  were  ambitious  of  the  character  of  the  scholar,  not  of 
the  printer. 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  our  publishers  are  not  liter- 
ary men,  able  to  form  their  own  critical  decisions.  Among 
the  learned  printers  formerly,  a  book  was  valued  because  it 
came  from  the  presses  of  an  Aldus  or  a  Stephens ;  and  even 
in  our  own  time  the  names  of  Bowyer  and  Dodsley  sanc- 
tioned a  work.  Pelisson,  in  his  history  of  the  French  Acad- 
emy, mentions  that  Camusat  was  selected  as  their  bookseller, 
from  his  reputation  for  publishing  only  valuable  works.  "  He 
was  a  man  of  some  literature  and  good  sense,  and  rarely 
printed  an  indifferent  work  ;  and  Avhen  we  were  young  I 
recollect  that  we  always  made  it  a  rule  to  pui'chase  his  pub- 
lications. His  name  was  a  test  of  the  goodness  of  the  work." 
A  publisher  of  this  character  would  be  of  the  greatest  utility 
to  the  literary  world  :  at  home  he  would  induce  a  number  of 
ingenious  men  to  become  authors,  for  it  would  be  honourable 
to  be  inscribed  in  his  catalogue  ;  and  it  would  be  a  direction 
for  the  continental  reader. 

So  valuable  a  union  of  learning  and  printing  did  not,  un- 
fortunately, last.  The  printers  of  the  seventeenth  century 
became  less  charmed  with  glory  than  with  gain.  Their  cor- 
rectors and  their  letters  evmced  as  little  dehcacy  of  choice. 

The  invention  of  what  is  now  called  the  Italic  letter  in 
printing  was  made  by  Aldus  Manutius,  to  whom  learning 
owes  much.  He  observed  the  many  inconveniences  result- 
ing from  the  vast  number  of  abbreviations,  which  were  then 
80  frequent  among  the  printers,  that  a  book  was  difficult  to 
understand  ;  a  treatise  was  actually  written  on  the  art  of 
reading  a  printed  book,  and  this  addressed  to  the  learned ! 
He  contrived  an  expedient,  by  which  these  abbreviations 
might  be  entirely  got  rid  of,  and  yet  books  suffer  little  in- 
crease in  bulk.  This  he  effected  by  introducing  what  is  now 
called  the  Italic  letter,  though  it  formerly  was  distinguished 
by  the  name  of  the  inventor,  and  called  the  Aldine. 


ERRATA.  135 


ERRATA. 


Besides  the  ordinary  errata,  which  happen  in  printing  a 
work,  others  have  been  purposely  committed,  that  the  errata 
may  contain  what  is  not  permitted  to  appear  in  the  body  of 
the  work.  Wherever  the  Inquisition  had  any  power,  partic- 
ularly at  Rome,  it  was  not  allowed  to  employ  the  wovii  fatum, 
or  fata,  in  any  book.  An  author,  desirous  of  using  the  latter 
word,  adroitly  invented  this  scheme :  he  had  printed  in  his 
book  facta,  and,  in  the  errata,  he  put,  "  For  facta,  read 
fata." 

ScaiTon  has  done  the  same  thing  on  another  occasion. 
He  had  composed  some  verses,  at  the  head  of  which  he  placed 
this  dedication — A  GuiUemette,  Chienne  de  ma  Sceur  ;  but 
having  a  quarrel  with  his  sister,  he  maliciously  put  into  the 
errata,  "  Instead  of  Chienne  de  ma  Soeur,  read  ma  Chienne 
de  Soeur." 

LuUy  at  the  close  of  a  bad  prologue  said,  the  word  fn 
du  prologue  was  an  erratum,  it  should  have  been  fi  du  pro- 
logue ! 

In  a  book,  there  was  printed,  le  docte  Morel.  A  wag  put 
into  the  errata,  "  For  le  docte  Morel,  read  le  Docteur  Morel." 
This  Morel  was  not  the  first  docteur  not  docte. 

When  a  fanatic  published  a  mystical  work  full  of  unintel- 
ligible raptures,  and  which  he  entitled  Les  Delices  de  V Es- 
prit, it  was  proposed  to  print  in  his  errata,  "  For  Delices 
read  Delires." 

The  author  of  an  idle  and  imperfect  book  ended  with  the 
usual  phrase  of  cetera  desiderantur,  one  altered  it,  Kon  de- 
tiderantur  seddesunt  ;  "  The  rest  is  wanting,  but  not  wanted." 

At  the  close  of  a  silly  book,  the  author  as  usual  printed 
the  word  Finis. — A  wit  put  this  among  the  errata,  with  this 
pointed  couplet : 

Finis  ! — an  error,  or  a  lie,  my  friend ! 

In  writing  foolish  books — there  is  no  End! 


136  ERRATA. 

In  the  year  1561,  was  printed  a  work,  entitled  "  the  Anat- 
omy of  the  Mass."  It  is  a  thin  octavo,  of  172  pages,  and  it 
is  accompanied  by  an  Errata  of  15  pages  !  The  editor,  a 
pious  monk,  informs  us  that  a  very  serious  reason  induced 
him  to  undertake  this  task:  for  it  is,  says  he,  to  forestall  the 
artifices  of  Satan.  He  supposes  that  the  Devil,  to  ruin  the 
fruit  of  this  work,  employed  two  very  malicious  frauds :  the 
first  before  it  was  printed,  by  drenching  the  MS.  in  a  kennel, 
and  having  reduced  it  to  a  most  pitiable  state,  rendered  sev- 
eral parts  illegible :  the  second,  in  obliging  the  printers  to 
.commit  such  numerous  blunders,  never  yet  equalled  in  so 
small  a  work.  To  combat  this  double  machination  of  Satan 
he  was  obliged  carefully  to  re-peruse  the  work,  and  to  form 
this  singular  list  of  the  blunders  of  printers,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Satan.  All  this  he  relates  in  au  advertisement  pre- 
fixed to  the  Errata. 

A  furious  controversy  raged  between  two  famous  scholars 
from  a  very  laughable  but  accidental  Erratum,  and  threat- 
ened serious  consequences  to  one  of  the  parties.  Flavigny 
wrote  two  letters,  criticizing  rather  freely  a  polyglot  Bible 
edited  by  Abraham  Ecchellensis.  As  this  learned  editor 
had  sometimes  censured  the  labours  of  a  friend  of  Flavigny, 
this  latter  applied  to  him  the  third  and  fifth  verses  of  the 
seventh  chapter  of  St.  Matthew,  which  he  printed  in  Latin. 
Ver.  3.  Quid  vides  festucam  in  OCULO  fratris  tut,  et  trabem 
in  OCULO  tuo  non  rides'?  Ver.  5.  Ejice primum  trabem  de 
OCULO  tuo,  et  tunc  videbis  ejicere  festucam  de  OCVLO  fratris 
tui.  Ecchellensis  opens  his  reply  by  accusing  Flavigny  of 
an  enormous  crime  committed  in  this  passage ;  attempting  to 
correct  the  sacred  text  of  the  Evangelist,  and  daring  to  re- 
ject a  word,  while  he  supplied  its  place  by  another  as  impious 
as  obscene  /  This  crime,  exaggerated  with  all  the  virulence 
of  an  angry  declaimer,  closes  with  a  dreadful  accusation. 
Flavigny's  morals  are  attacked,  and  his  reputation  over- 
turned by  a  horrid  imputation.  Yet  all  this  terrible  re- 
proach is  only  founded  on  an  Erratum  I     The  whole  arose 


ERRATA.  137 

from  the  printer  having  negligently  suffered  the  first  letter 
of  the  word  Oculo  to  have  dropped  from  the  form  when  he 
happened  to  touch  a  line  with  his  finger,  which  did  not  stand 
straight !  lie  published  another  letter  to  do  away  the  impu- 
tation of  Ecchellensis ;  but  thirty  years  afterwards  his  rage 
against  the  negligent  printer  was  not  extinguished ;  the  wits 
were  always  reminding  him  of  it. 

Of  all  literary  blunders  none  equalled  that  of  the  edition 
of  the  Vulgate,  by  Sixtus  V.  His  Holiness  carefully  super- 
intended every  sheet  as  it  passed  through  the  press ;  and,  to 
the  amazement  of  the  world,  the  work  remained  without  a 
rival — it  swarmed  with  errata!  A  multitude  of  scraps  were 
printed  to  paste  over  the  erroneous  passages,  in  order  to  give 
the  true  text.  The  book  makes  a  whimsical  appearance  with 
these  patches  ;  and  the  heretics  exulted  in  this  demonstration 
of  papal  infallibility !  The  copies  were  called  in,  and  violent 
attempts  made  to  suppress  it ;  a  few  still  remain  for  the  rap- 
tures of  the  biblical  collectors ;  not  long  ago  the  bible  of 
Sixtus  V.  fetched  above  sixty  guineas — not  too  much  for  a 
mere  book  of  blunders !  The  world  was  highly  amused  at 
the  bull  of  the  editorial  Pope  prefixed  to  the  first  volume, 
which  excommunicates  all  printers  who  in  reprintmg  the 
work  should  make  any  alteration  in  the  text ! 

In  the  vei-sion  of  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  into  the  Ethi- 
opic  language,  which  proved  to  be  full  of  errors,  the  editors 
allege  a  good-humoured  reason — "They  who  printed  the 
work  could  not  read,  and  we  could  not  print ;  they  helped 
us,  and  we  helped  them,  as  the  blind  helps  the  blind." 

A  printer's  widow  in  Germany,  while  a  new  edition  of  the 
Bible  was  printing  at  her  house,  one  night  took  an  opportu- 
nity of  stealing  into  the  office,  to  alter  that  sentence  of  subjec- 
tion to  her  husband,  pronounced  upon  Eve  in  Genesis,  chap. 
3,  V.  16.  She  took  out  the  first  two  letters  of  the  word 
Heur,  and  substituted  Na  in  their  place,  thus  altering  the 
sentence  from  "and  he  shall  be  thy  Lord"  (Herr),  to  "and 
he  shall  be  thy  Fool  "  (Narr).     It  is  said  her  life  paid  for 


[38  ERRATA. 

this  intentional  erratum ;  and  that  some  secreted  copies  of 
this  edition  have  been  bought  up  at  enormous  prices. 

We  have  an  edition  of  the  Bible,  known  by  the  name  of 
The  Vinegar  Bible  ;  from  the  erratum  in  the  title  to  the  20th 
Chap,  of  St.  Luke,  in  which  "  Parable  of  the  Vineyard"  is 
printed  "  Parable  of  the  Vinegar."  It  was  printed  in  1717, 
at  the  Clarendon  press. 

We  have  had  another,  where  "  Thou  shalt  commit  adul- 
tery "  was  printed,  omitting  the  negation ;  which  occasioned 
the  archbishop  to  lay  one  of  the  heaviest  penalties  on  the 
Company  of  Stationers  that  was  ever  recorded  in  the  annals 
of  literary  history. 

Herbert  Croft  used  to  complain  of  the  incorrectness  of  our 
English  classics,  as  reprinted  by  the  booksellers.  It  is  evi- 
dent some  stupid  printer  often  changes  a  whole  text  inten- 
tionally. The  fine  description  by  Akenside  of  the  Pantheon, 
"  SEVERELY  great,"  not  bising  understood  by  the  blockhead, 
was  printed  serenely  great.  Swift's  own  edition  of  "  The 
City  Shower,"  has  "old  aches  throb."  Aches  is  two  sylla- 
bles, but  modern  printers,  who  had  lost  the  right  pronuncia- 
tion, have  aches  as  one  syllable ;  and  then,  to  complete  the 
metre,  have  foisted  in  "  aches  will  throb."  Thus  what  the 
poet  and  the  linguist  wish  to  preserve  is  altered,  and  finally 
lost. 

It  appears  by  a  calculation  made  by  the  printer  of  Stee- 
vens's  edition  of  Shakspeare,  that  every  octavo  page  of  that 
work,  text  and  notes,  contains  2,680  distinct  pieces  of  metal ; 
which  in  a  sheet  amount  to  42,880 — the  misplacing  of  any 
one  of  which  would  inevitably  cause  a  blunder !  With  this 
curious  fact  before  us,  the  accurate  state  of  our  printing,  in 
general,  is  to  be  admired,  and  errata  ought  more  freely  to  be 
pardoned  than  the  fastidious  minuteness  of  the  insect  eye  of 
certain  critics  has  allowed. 

Whether  such  a  miracle  as  an  immaculate  edition  of  a 
classical  author  does  exist,  I  have  never  learnt;  but  an  at- 
tempt has  been  made  to  obtain  this  glorious  singularity — and 


PATRONS.  139 

was  fis  nearly  realized  as  is  perhaps  possible  in  the  magnifi- 
cent edition  of  Os  Litstadas  of  Caraoens,  by  Dom  Joze 
Souza,  in  1817.  This  amateur  spared  no  prodigality  of  cost 
and  labour,  and  flattered  himself,  that  by  the  assistance  of 
Didot,  not  a  single  typographical  error  should  be  found  in 
that  splendid  volume.  But  an  error  was  afterwards  discov- 
ered in  some  of  the  copies,  occasioned  by  one  of  the  letters 
in  the  word  Lusitano  having  got  misplaced  during  the  work- 
ing of  one  of  the  sheets.  It  must  be  confessed  that  this  was 
an  accident  or  misfortune — rather  than  an  Erratum! 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  complaints  on  errata  is  that 
of  Edw.  Leigh,  appended  to  his  curious  treatise  on  "Religion 
and  Learning."  It  consists  of  two  folio  pages,  in  a  very 
minute  character,  and  exhibits  an  incalculable  number  of 
printers'  blunders.  "  We  have  not,"  he  says,  "  Plantin  nor 
Stephens  amongst  us ;  and  it  is  no  easy  task  to  specify  the 
chiefest  errata ;  false  interpunctions  there  are  too  many ;  here 
a  letter  wanting,  there  a  letter  too  much  ;  a  syllable  too  much, 
one  letter  for  another ;  words  parted  where  they  should  be 
joined ;  words  joined  which  should  be  severed  ;  words  mis- 
placed ;  chronological  mistakes,"  &c.  This  unfortunate  folio 
was  printed  in  1656.  Are  we  to  infer,  by  such  frequent 
complaints  of  the  authors  of  that  day,  that  either  they  did 
not  receive  proofs  from  the  printers,  or  that  the  printers 
never  attended  to  the  corrected  proofs  ?  Each  single  erra- 
tum seems  to  have  been  felt  as  a  stab  to  the  literary  feelings 
of  the  poor  author. 


PATRONS. 

Authors  have  too  frequently  received  ill  treatment,  even 
fi-om  those  to  whom  they  dedicated  their  works. 

Some  who  felt  hurt  at  the  shameless  treatment  of  such 
xnock  INIiecenases  have  observed  that  no  writer  should  dedi- 
cate his  works  but  to  his  friends,  as  was  practised  by  the 


i40  PATRONS. 

ancients,  who  usually  addressed  those  who  had  solicited  their 
labours,  or  animated  their  progress.  Theodosius  Gaza  had 
no  other  recompense  for  having  inscribed  to  Sixtus  IV.  hia 
translation  of  the  book  of  Aristotle  on  the  Nature  of  Animals, 
than  the  price  of  the  binding,  which  this  charitable  father  of 
the  church  munificently  bestowed  upon  him. 

Theocritus  fills  his  Idylliums  with  loud  complaints  of  the 
neglect  of  liis  patrons  ;  and  Tasso  was  as  httle  successful  in 
his  dedications. 

Ariosto,  in  presenting  his  Orlando  Furioso  to  the  Cardinal 
d'Este,  was  gratified  with  the  bitter  sarcasm  of — "  Dove  dia- 
voh  ave.te  pigliato  tante  coglionerie  ? "  Where  the  devil 
have  you  found  all  this  nonsense  ? 

When  the  French  historian  Dupleix,  whose  pen  was  in- 
deed fertile,  presented  his  book  to  the  Duke  d'Epemon,  this 
Maecenas,  turning  to  the  Pope's  Nuncio,  who  was  present, 
very  coarsely  exclaimed — "  Cadedids  !  ce  monsieur  a  un  flux 
enrage,  il  chie  un  Uvre  toutes  les  lunes  ! " 

Thomson,  the  ardent  author  of  the  Seasons,  having  ex- 
travagantly praised  a  person  of  rank,  who  afterwards  ap- 
peared to  be  undeserving  of  eulogiums,  properly  employed 
his  pen  in  a  solemn  recantation  of  his  error.  A  very 
different  conduct  from  that  of  Dupleix,  who  always  spoke 
highly  of  Queen  Margaret  of  France  for  a  little  place  he 
held  in  her  household :  but  after  her  death,  when  the  place 
became  extinct,  spoke  of  her  with  all  the  freedom  of  satu-e. 
Such  is  too  often  the  character  of  some  of  the  literati,  who 
only  dare  to  reveal  the  truth  when  they  have  no  interest  to 
conceal  it. 

Poor  Mickle,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  so  beautiful  a 
version  of  Camoens's  Lusiad,  having  dedicated  this  work,  the 
continued  labour  of  five  years,  to  the  Duke  of  Buccleugh,  had 
the  mortification  to  find,  by  the  discovery  of  a  friend,  that 
he  had  kept  it  in  his  possession  three  weeks  before  he  could 
collect  sufiTicient  intellectual  desire  to  cut  open  the  pages ! 
The  neglect  of  this  nobleman  reduced  the  poet  to  a  state  of 


I'ATRONS.  141 

despondency.  This  patron  was  a  political  economist,  thft 
pupil  of  Adam  Smith !  It  is  pleasing  to  add,  in  contrast 
with  this  frigid  Scotch  patron,  that  when  Mickle  went  to 
Lisbon,  where  his  translation  had  long  preceded  his  visit,  he 
found  the  Prince  of  Portugal  waiting  on  the  quay  to  be  the 
drst  to  receive  the  translator  of  his  great  national  poem  ;  and 
during  a  residence  of  six  months,  Mickle  was  warmly  re- 
garded by  every  Portuguese  nobleman. 

"  Every  man  believes,"  writes  Dr.  Johnson,  to  Baretti, 
"  that  mistresses  are  unfaithful,  and  patrons  are  capricious. 
But  he  excepts  his  own  mistress,  and  his  own  patron." 

A  patron  is  sometimes  oddly  obtained.  Benserade  at- 
tached himself  to  Cardinal  Mazarin ;  but  his  friendship 
produced  nothing  but  civility.  The  poet  every  day  indulged 
his  easy  and  chai'ming  vein  of  amatory  and  panegyrical 
poetry,  while  all  the  world  read  and  admu-ed  his  verses. 
One  evening  the  cardinal,  in  conversation  with  the  king, 
described  his  mode  of  life  when  at  the  papal  court.  He 
loved  the  sciences ;  but  his  chief  occupation  was  the  belles 
lettres,  composing  httle  pieces  of  poetry ;  he  said  that  he  was 
then  in  the  court  of  Rome  what  Benserade  was  now  in  that 
of  France.  Some  hours  afterwards,  the  friends  of  the  jwet 
related  to  him  the  conversation  of  the  cardinal.  He  quitted 
them  abruptly,  and  ran  to  the  apartment  of  his  eminence, 
knocking  with  all  his  force,  that  he  might  be  certain  of  being 
heard.  The  cardinal  had  just  gone  to  bed ;  but  he  inces- 
santly clamoured,  demantiing  entrance  ;  they  were  compelled 
to  open  the  door.  He  ran  to  his  eminence,  fell  upon  his 
knees,  almost  pulled  otf  the  sheets  of  the  bed  in  rapture, 
imploring  a  thousand  pardons  for  thus  disturbing  him  ;  but 
such  was  his  joy  in  what  he  had  just  heard,  which  he  re- 
peated, that  he  could  not  refrain  from  immediately  giving 
vent  to  his  gratitude  and  his  pride,  to  have  been  compared 
with  his  eminence  for  his  poetical  talents  !  Had  tlie  door 
not  been  immediately  opened,  he  should  have  expired  ;  he 
was  not  rich,  it  is  true,  but  he  should  now  die  contented ' 


142  POETS,  PHILOSOPHERS,  AND   ARTISTS, 

The  cardinal  was  pleased  with  his  ardour,  and  probably 
never  suspected  his  flattery ;  and  the  next  week  our  new 
actor  was  pensioned. 

On  Cardinal  Richelieu,  another  of  his  pati'ons,  he  grate- 
fully made  this  epitaph  : — 

Cy  gist,  ouy  gist,  par  la  mort  bleu, 
Le  Cardinal  de  Richelieu, 
Et  ce  qui  cause  mon  ennuy 
Ma  PENSION  avec  lui. 

Here  lies,  egad,  'tis  very  true. 
The  illustrious  Cardinal  Richelieu  : 
My  grief  is  genuine — void  of  whim! 
Alas!  ray  pension  lies  with  him! 

Le  Brun,  the  great  French  artist,  painted  himself  holding 
in  his  hand  the  portrait  of  his  earliest  patron.  In  this  ac- 
companiment the  Artist  may  be  said  to  have  portrayed  the 
features  of  his  soul.  If  genius  has  too  often  complained 
of  its  patrons,  has  it  not  also  often  over-valued  their  pro- 
tection ? 


POETS,   PHILOSOPHERS,  AND   ARTISTS,  MADE   BY 
ACCIDENT. 

Accident  has  frequently  occasioned  the  most  eminent 
geniuses  to  display  their  powers.  "It  was  at  Rome,"  says 
Gibbon,  "on  the  15th  of  October,  1764,  as  I  sat  musing 
amidst  the  ruins  of  the  Capitol,  while  the  bare-footed  friars 
were  singing  vespers  in  the  Temple  of  Jupiter,  that  the  idea 
of  writing  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  City  first  started  to 
my  mind." 

Father  Malebranche  having  completed  his  studies  in  phi 
losophy  and  theology  without  any  other  intention  than  de- 
voting himself  to  some  religious  order,  little  expected  the 
celebrity  his  works  acquired  for  him.  Loitering  in  an  idle 
hour  in  the  shop  of  a  bookseller,  and  turning  over  a  pai'cel  of 


MADE   BY  ACCIDENT.  143 

books,  L Homme  de  Descartes  fell  into  his  hands.  Having 
dipt  into  parts,  he  read  with  such  delight,  that  the  palpita- 
tions of  his  heart  compelled  him  to  lay  the  volume  down.  It 
was  this  circumstance  that  j)roduced  those  profound  contem- 
plations Avhich  made  him  the  Plato  of  his  age. 

Cowley  became  a  poet  by  accident.    In  his  mother's  apart 
mcnt  he  found,  when  very  young,  Spenser's  Fairy  Queen ; 
and,  by  a  continual  study  of  poetry,  he  became  so  enchanted 
by  the  Muse,  that  he  grew  irrecoverably  a  poet. 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  had  the  first  fondness  for  his  art  ex- 
cited by  the  perusal  of  Richardson's  Treatise. 

Vaucanson  displayed  an  uncommon  genius  for  mechanics. 
His  taste  was  tirst  determined  by  an  accident :  when  young, 
he  frequently  attended  his  mother  to  the  residence  of  her 
confessor  ;  and  wliile  she  wept  with  repentance,  he  wept 
with  weariness  !  In  this  state  of  disagreeable  vacation,  says 
Helvetius,  he  was  struck  with  the  unifonn  motion  of  the 
pendulum  of  the  clock  in  the  hall.  His  curiosity  was  roused  ; 
he  approached  the  clock-case,  and  studied  its  me^  lanism  ; 
what  he  could  not  discover  he  guessed  at.  He  then  pro- 
jected a  similar  machine  ;  and  gradually  his  genius  produced 
a  clock.  Encouraged  by  this  first  success,  he  proceeded  in 
his  various  attempts ;  and  the  genius,  which  thus  could  form 
a  clock,  in  time  formed  a  fluting  automaton. 

Accident  determined  the  taste  of  IMoliere  for  the  stage. 
His  grandfather  loved  the  theatre,  and  frequently  carried 
him  there.  The  young  man  lived  in  dissipation  ;  the  father 
observing  it  asked  in  anger,  if  his  son  was  to  be  made  an 
actor.  "  Would  to  God,"  replied  the  grandfather,  «  he  were 
as  good  an  actor  as  Monrose."  The  words  struck  young 
Moliere,  he  took  a  disgust  to  his  tapestry  trade,  and  it  is  to 
this  circumstance  France  owes  her  greatest  comic  writer. 

Corneille  loved ;  he  made  verses  for  his  mistress,  became 
a  poet,  composed  Melite  and  afterwards  his  other  celebrated 
works.     The  discreet  Corneille  had  else  remained  a  lawyer. 

We  owe  the  great  discovery  of  Newton  to  a  very  trivial 


144  POETS,  PHILOSOPHERS,  AND  ARTISTS, 

accident.  "When  a  student  at  Cambridge,  he  had  retired 
during  the  time  of  the  plague  into  the  country.  As  he  was 
reading  under  an  apple-tree,  one  of  the  fruit  fell,  and  struck 
him  a  smart  blow  on  the  head.  When  he  observed  the 
smallness  of  the  apple,  he  was  surprised  at  the  force  of  the 
stroke.  This  led  liim  to  consider  the  accelerating  motion  of 
falling  bodies ;  from  whence  he  deduced  the  principle  of 
gravity,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  his  philosophy. 

Ignatius  Loyola  was  a  Spanish  gentleman,  who  was  dan- 
gerously wounded  at  the  siege  of  Fampeluna.  Having 
heated  his  imagination  by  reading  the  Lives  of  the  Saints 
during  his  illness,  instead  of  a  romance,  he  conceived  a 
strong  ambition  to  be  the  founder  of  a  religious  order ; 
whence  originated  the  celebrated  society  of  the  Jesuits. 

Rousseau  found  his  eccentric  powers  first  awakened  by 
the  advertisement  of  the  singular  annual  subject  which  the 
Academy  of  Dijon  proposed  for  that  year,  in  which  he  wrote 
his  celebrated  declamation  against  the  arts  and  sciences.  A 
circumstance  which  decided  his  future  literary  efforts. 

La  Fontaine,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  had  not  taken  any 
profession,  or  devoted  himself  to  any  pursuit.  Having  acci- 
dentally heard  some  verses  of  Malherbe,  he  felt  a  sudden 
impulse,  which  directed  his  future  life.  He  immediately 
bought  a  Malherbe,  and  was  so  exquisitely  delighted  with 
this  poet  that,  after  passing  the  nights  in  treasuring  his 
verses  in  his  memory,  he  would  run  in  the  day-time  to  the 
woods,  where,  concealing  himself,  he  would  recite  his  verses 
to  the  surrounding  dryads. 

Flamsteed  was  an  astronomer  by  accident.  He  was  taken 
from  school  on  account  of  his  illness,  when  Sacrobosco's 
book  De  Sphjera  having  been  lent  to  him,  he  was  so  pleased 
with  it  that  he  immediately  began  a  course  of  astronomic 
studies.  Pennant's  first  propensity  to  natural  history  was 
the  pleasure  he  received  from  an  accidental  perusal  of  Wil- 
loughby's  work  on  birds.  The  same  accident  of  finding,  on 
tlie   table  of  his   professor,   Reaumur's   History  of   Insects, 


MADE   BY  ACCIDENT.  145 

which  he  read  more  than  he  attended  to  the  lecture,  and, 
having  been  refused  the  loan,  gave  such  an  instant  turn  to 
the  mind  of  Bonnet,  that  he  hastened  to  obtain  a  copy ;  after 
many  difficulties  in  procuring  this  costly  work,  its  possession 
gave  an  unalterable  direction  to  his  future  life.  This  nat- 
uralist indeed  lost  the  use  of  his  sight  by  his  devotion  to  the 
microscope. 

Dr.  Franklin  attributes  the  cast  of  his  genius  to  a  similar 
accident.  "  I  found  a  work  of  De  Foe's,  entitled  an  '  Essay 
on  Projects,'  from  winch  perhaps  I  derived  impressions  that 
have  since  influenced  some  of  the  principal  events  of  my 
life." 

I  shall  add  the  incident  which  occasioned  Roger  Aschara 
to  write  his  Schoolmaster,  one  of  the  few  works  among  our 
elder  writers,  which  we  still  read  with  pleasure. 

At  a  dinner  given  by  Sir  William  Cecil,  at  his  apartments 
at  Windsor,  a  number  of  ingenious  men  were  invited.  Sec- 
retary Cecil  communicated  the  news  of  the  morning,  that 
several  scholai's  at  Eton  had  run  away  on  account  of  their 
master's  severity,  which  he  condemned  as  a  great  error  in 
the  education  of  youth.  Sir  William  Petre  maintained  the 
contrary ;  severe  in  his  own  temper,  he  pleaded  warmly  in 
defence  of  hard  flogging.  Dr.  Wootton,  in  softer  tones, 
sided  with  the  secretary.  Sir  John  Mason,  adopting  no  side, 
bantered  both.  Mr.  Haddon  seconded  the  hard-hearted  Sir 
William  Petre,  and  adduced,  as  an  evidence,  that  the  best 
schoolmaster  then  in  England  was  the  hardest  flogger. 
Then  was  it  that  Roger  Ascham  indignantly  exclaimed,  that 
if  such  a  master  had  an  able  scholar  it  was  owing  to  the 
boy's  genius,  and  not  the  preceptor's  rod.  Secretary  Cecil 
and  others  were  pleased  with  Ascham's  notions.  Sir  Rich- 
ard Sackville  was  silent,  but  when  Ascham  after  dinner  went 
to  the  queen  to  read  one  of  the  orations  of  Demosthenes,  he 
took  him  aside,  and  frankly  told  him  that,  though  he  had 
taken  no  part  in  the  debate,  he  would  not  have  been  absent 
from  that  conversation  for  a  great  deal ;  that  he  knew  to  his 

VOL.   I.  10 


146  INEQUALITIES   OF   GENIUS. 

cost  the  truth  that  Ascham  had  supported ;  for  it  was  the 
perpetual  flogging  of  such  a  schoolmaster  that  had  given  him 
an  unconquerable  aversion  to  study.  And  as  he  wished  to 
remedy  this  defect  in  his  own  children,  he  earnestly  exhorted 
Ascham  to  write  his  observations  on  so  interesting  a  topic. 
Such  was  the  circumstance  which  produced  the  admirable 
treatise  of  Roger  Ascham. 


INEQUALITIES    OF   GENIUS. 

Singular  inequalities  are  observable  in  the  labours  of 
genius  ;  and  particularly  in  those  which  admit  great  enthu- 
siasm, as  in  poetry,  in  painting,  and  in  music.  Faultless 
mediocrity,  industry  can  preserve  in  one  continued  degree  ; 
but  excellence,  the  daring  and  the  happy,  can  only  be  at- 
tained, by  human  faculties,  by  starts. 

Our  poets  who  possess  the  greatest  genius,  with  perhaps 
the  least  industry,  have  at  the  same  time  the  most  splendid 
and  the  worst  passages  of  poetry.  Shakspeare  and  Dryden 
are  at  once  the  greatest  and  the  least  of  our  poets.  With 
some,  their  great  fault  consists  in  having  none. 

Carraccio  sarcastically  said  of  Tintoret — Ho  veduto  il  Tin- 
toretto hora  eguale  a  Titiano,  hora  minore  del  Tintoretto — 
"  I  have  seen  Tintoret  now  equal  to  Titian,  and  now  less 
than  Tintoret." 

Trublet  justly  observes — The  more  there  are  beauties  and 
great  beauties  in  a  work,  I  am  the  less  surprised  to  find 
faults  and  great  faults.  When  you  say  of  a  work  that  it 
has  many  faults,  that  decides  nothing :  and  I  do  not  know  by 
this,  whether  it  is  execrable  or  excellent.  You  tell  me  of 
another,  that  it  is  without  any  faults  :  if  your  account  be 
just,  it  is  certain  the  work  cannot  be  excellent. 

It  was  observed  of  one  pleader,  that  he  kneio  more  than 
he  said ;  and  of  another,  that  he  said  more  than  he  knew. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  STYLE.  147 

Lucian  happily  describes  the  works  of  those  who  abound 
with  the  most  luxuriant  language,  void  of  ideas.  He  calls 
their  unmeaning  verbosity  "  anemone-words  ;  "  for  aneraonies 
ai'e  flowers,  which,  however  brilliant,  only  please  the  eye, 
leaving  no  fragrance.  Pratt,  who  was  a  writer  of  flowing 
but  nugatory  verses,  was  compared  to  the  daisy  ;  a  flower  in- 
deed common  enough,  and  without  odour. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  STYLE. 

There  are  many  sciences,  says  Menage,  on  which  we 
cannot  indeed  compose  in  a  florid  or  elegant  dic^tion,  such  as 
geography,  music,  algebra,  geometry,  &c.  When  Atticus 
requested  Cicero  to  write  on  geography,  the  latter  excused 
himseif,  observing  that  its  scenes  were  more  adapted  to 
please  the  eye  than  susceptible  of  the  embellishments  of 
style.  However,  in  these  kinds  of  sciences,  we  may  lend  aa 
ornament  to  their  dryness  by  introducing  occasionally  some 
elegant  allusion,  or  noticing  some  incident  suggested  by  the 
object. 

Thus  when  we  notice  some  inconsiderable  place,  for  in- 
stance Woodstock,  we  may  recall  attention  to  the  residence 
of  Chaucer,  the  parent  of  our  poetry,  or  the  romantic  laby- 
rinth of  Rosamond  ;  or  as  in  "  an  Autumn  on  the  Rhine," 
at  Ingelheim,  at  the  view  of  an  old  palace  built  by  Charle- 
magne, the  traveller  adds,  with  "  a  hundred  columns  brought 
from  Rome,"  and  further  it  was  "  the  scene  of  the  romantic 
amours  of  that  monarch's  fair  daughter,  Ibertha,  with  Egin- 
hard,  his  secretary  ; "  and  viewing  the  Gothic  ruins  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rhine,  he  noticed  them  as  having  been  the 
haunts  of  those  illustrious  chevaliers  voleurs,  whose  chivalry 
consisted  in  pillaging  the  merchants  and  towns,  till,  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  a  citizen  of  Mayence  persuaded  the  mer- 
chants of  more  than  a   hundred    towns    to  form    a    league 


148  LEGENDS. 

against  these  little  princes  and  counts ;  the  oi'igin  of  the 
famous  Rhenish  league,  which  contributed  so  much  to  the 
commerce  of  Europe.  This  kind  of  erudition  gives  an  in- 
terest to  topogra{)hy,  by  associating  in  our  memory  great 
events  and  personages  with  the  localities. 

The  same  principle  of  composition  may  be  carried  with 
the  happiest  effect  into  some  dry  investigations,  though  the 
profound  antiquary  may  not  approve  of  these  sports  of  wit 
or  fancy.  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  in  his  Tables  of  Ancient  Coins, 
"Weights,  and  Measures,  a  topic  extremely  barren  of  amuse- 
ment, takes  every  opportunity  of  enlivening  the  dulness  of 
his  task ;  even  in  these  mathematical  calculations  he  betrays 
his  wit ;  and  observes  that  "  the  polite  Augustus,  the  emperor 
of  the  world,  had  neither  any  glass  in  his  windows,  nor  a 
shirt  to  his  back  ! "  Those  uses  of  glass  and  linen  indeed 
were  not  known  in  his  time.  Our  physician  is  not  less  curious 
and  facetious  in  the  account  of  the  fees  which  the  Roman 
physicians  received. 


LEGENDS. 

Those  ecclesiastical  histories  entitled  Legends  are  said  to 
have  originated  in  the  following  circumstance. 

Before  colleges  were  established  in  the  monasteries  where 
the  schools  were  held,  the  professors  in  rhetoric  frequently 
gave  their  pupils  the  life  of  some  saint  for  a  trial  of  their 
talent  at  amplification.  The  students,  at  a  loss  to  furnish 
out  their  pages,  invented  most  of  these  wonderful  adventures. 
Jortin  observes,  that  the  Christians  used  to  collect  out  of 
Ovid,  Livy,  and  other  pagan  poets  and  historians,  the  miracles 
and  portents  to  be  found  there,  and  accommodated  them  to 
their  own  monks  and  saints.  The  good  fathers  of  that  age, 
whose  simplicity  was  not  inferior  to  their  devotion,  were  so 
delighted   with   these   flowers   of  rhetoric,  that   they  were 


LEGENDS  1 49 

induced  to  make  a  collection  of  these  miraculous  composi- 
tions ;  not  imagining  that,  at  some  distant  period,  they  would 
become  matters  of  faith.  Yet,  when  James  de  Voragine, 
Peter  Nadal,  and  Peter  Ribadenerra,  wrote  the  Lives  of  the 
Saints,  they  sought  for  their  materials  in  the  libraries  of  the 
monasteries ;  and,  awakening  from  the  dust  these  manuscripts 
of  amplification,  imagined  they  made  an  invaluable  present 
to  the  world,  by  laying  before  them  these  voluminous  absur- 
dities. The  people  received  these  pious  fictions  with  all 
imaginable  simplicity,  and  as  these  are  adorned  by  a  number 
of  cuts,  the  miracles  were  perfectly  intelligible  to  their  eyes. 
Tillemont,  Fleury,  Baillet,  Launoi,  and  Bollandus,  cleared 
away  much  of  the  rubbish ;  the  enviable  title  of  Golden 
Legend,  by  which  James  de  Voragine  called  his  work,  has 
been  disputed ;  iron  or  lead  might  more  aptly  describe  its 
character. 

When  the  world  began  to  be  more  critical  in  their  readmg, 
the  monks  gave  a  graver  turn  to  their  narratives ;  and 
became  penurious  of  their  absurdities.  The  faithful  Catholic 
contends,  that  the  line  of  tradition  has  been  preserved 
unbroken ;  notwithstanding  that  the  originals  were  lost  in 
the  general  wreck  of  literature  from  the  barbarians,  or  came 
down  in  a  most  imperfect  state. 

Baronius  has  given  the  lives  of  many  apocryphal  saints ; 
for  instance,  of  a  Saint  Xinoris,  whom  he  calls  a  martyr  of 
Antioch ;  but  it  appears  that  Baronius  having  read  in  Chry- 
sostom  this  word,  which  signifies  a  couple,  or  pair,  he  mistook 
it  for  the  name  of  a  saint,  and  contrived  to  give  the  most 
authentic  biography  of  a  saint  who  never  existed !  The 
Catholics  confess  this  sort  of  blunder  is  not  uncommon,  but 
then  it  is  only  fools  who  laugh !  As  a  specimen  of  the  hap- 
pier inventions,  one  is  given,  embellished  by  the  diction  of 
Gibbon — 

"Among  the  insipid  legends  of  ecclesiastical  history,  I  am 
tempted  to  distinguish  the  memorable  fable  of  the  Seven 
Sleepers ;  whose  imaginary  date  corresponds  with  the  reign 


150  LEGENDS. 

of  the  younger  Theodosius,  and  the  conquest  of  Africa  bj 
the  Vandals.  When  the  Emperor  Decius  persecuted  the 
Christians,  seven  noble  youths  of  Ephesus  concealed  them- 
selves in  a  spacious  cavern  on  the  side  of  an  adjacent 
mountain  ;  where  they  were  doomed  to  perish  by  the  tyrant, 
who  gave  orders  that  the  entrance  should  be  firmly  secured 
with  a  pile  of  stones.  They  immediately  fell  into  a  deep 
slumber,  which  was  miraculously  prolonged,  without  injuring 
the  powers  of  life,  during  a  period  of  one  hundred  and 
eighty-seven  years.  At  the  end  of  that  time  the  slaves  of 
Adolius,  to  whom  the  inheritance  of  the  mountain  had 
descended,  removed  the  stones  to  supply  materials  for  some 
rustic  edifice.  The  light  of  the  sun  darted  into  the  cavern, 
and  the  Seven  Sleepers  were  permitted  to  awake.  After  a 
slumber  as  they  thought  of  a  few  hours,  they  were  pressed 
by  the  calls  of  hunger ;  and  resolved  that  Jamblichus,  one 
of  their  number,  should  secretly  return  to  the  city  to  pur- 
chase bread  for  the  use  of  his  companions.  The  youth,  if 
we  may  still  employ  that  appellation,  could  no  longer  recog- 
nize the  once  familiar  aspect  of  his  native  country ;  and  his 
surprise  was  increased  by  the  appearance  of  a  large  cross, 
triumphantly  erected  over  the  principal  gate  of  Ephesus. 
His  singular  dress  and  obsolete  language  confounded  the 
baker,  to  whom  he  offered  an  ancient  medal  of  Decius  as  the 
current  coin  of  the  empire ;  and  Jamblichus,  on  the  suspicion 
of  a  secret  treasure,  was  dragged  before  the  judge.  Their 
mutual  inquiries  produced  the  amazing  discovery,  that  two 
centuries  w^ere  almost  elapsed  since  Jamblichus  and  hia 
friends  had  escaped  from  the  rage  of  a  Pagan  tyrant.  The 
bishop  of  Ephesus,  the  clergy,  the  magistrates,  the  people, 
and,  it  is  said,  the  Emperor  Theodosius  himself,  hastened 
to  visit  the  cavern  of  the  Seven  Sleepers  ;  who  bestowed 
their  benediction,  related  their  story,  and  at  the  same  instant 
peaceably  expired. 

"  This  popular  tale  Mahomet  learned  when  he  drove  hig 
camels  to  the  fairs  of  Syria ;  and  he  has  introduced  it,  as  a 


LEGENDS.  15] 

divine  revelation,  into  the  Koran." — The  same  story  has  been 
adopted  and  adorned  by  the  nations,  from  Bengal  to  Africa, 
who  profess  the  Mahometan  religion. 

The  too  curious  reader  may  perhaps  require  other  speci- 
mens of  the  more  unlucky  inventions  of  this  "  Golden 
Legend;"  as  characteristic  of  a  certain  class  of  minds,  the 
philosopher  will  contemn  these  grotesque  fictions. 

These  monks  imagined  that  holiness  was  often  proportioned 
to  a  saint's  filthiness.  St.  Ignatius,  say  they,  delighted  to 
aj  pear  abroad  with  old  dirty  shoes  ;  he  never  used  a  comb, 
but  let  his  hair  clot ;  and  religiously  abstained  from  paring 
his  nails.  One  saint  attained  to  such  piety  as  to  have  near 
three  hundred  patches  on  his  breeches ;  which,  after  his 
death,  were  hung  up  in  public  as  an  incentive  to  imitation. 
St  Francis  discovered,  by  certain  experience,  that  the  devils 
were  frightened  away  by  such  kind  of  breeches,  but  were 
animated  by  clean  clothing  to  tempt  and  seduce  the  wearers ; 
and  one  of  their  heroes  declares  that  the  purest  souls  are  in 
the  dirtiest  bodies.  On  this  they  tell  a  story  which  may  not 
be  very  agreeable  to  fastidious  delicacy.  Brother  Juniper 
was  a  gentleman  perfectly  pious,  on  this  principle  ;  indeed  so 
great  was  his  merit  in  this  species  of  mortification,  that  a 
brother  declared  he  could  always  nose  Brother  Juniper  when 
within  a  mile  of  the  monastery,  provided  the  wind  was  at  the 
due  point.  Once,  when  the  blessed  Juniper,  for  he  was  no 
saint,  was  a  guest,  his  host,  proud  of  the  honour  of  entertain- 
ing so  pious  a  personage,  the  intimate  friend  of  St.  Francis, 
provided  an  excellent  bed,  and  the  finest  sheets.  Brother 
Juniper  abhorred  such  luxury.  And  this  too  evidently 
appeared  after  his  sudden  departure  in  the  morning,  unknown 
to  his  kind  host.  The  great  Juniper  did  this,  says  liis  biog- 
rapher, having  told  us  what  he  did,  not  so  much  from  his 
habitual  inclinations,  for  which  he  was  so  justly  celebrated, 
as  from  his  excessive  piety,  and  as  much  as  he  could  to 
mortify  worldly  pride,  and  to  show  how  a  true  saint  despised 
clean  sheets. 


152  LEGENDS. 

la  the  life  of  St.  Francis  we  find,  among  other  grotesque 
miracles,  that  he  preached  a  sermon  in  a  desert,  but  he  soon 
collected  an  immense  audience.  The  birds  shrilly  warbled 
to  every  sentence,  and  stretched  out  their  necks,  opened  their 
beaks,  and  when  he  finished,  dispersed  with  a  holy  rapture 
into  four  companies,  to  report  his  sermon  to  all  the  birds  in 
the  universe.  A  grasshopper  remained  a  week  with  St^ 
Francis  during  the  absence  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  pittered 
on  his  head.  He  grew  so  companionable  with  a  nightingale, 
that  when  a  nest  of  swallows  began  to  babble,  he  hushed 
them  by  desiring  them  not  to  tittle-tattl«  of  their  sister,  the 
nightingale.  Attacked  by  a  wolf,  with  only  the  sign  manual 
of  the  cross,  he  held  a  long  dialogue  with  his  rabid  assailant, 
till  the  wolf,  meek  as  a  lap-dog,  stretched  his  paws  in  the 
hands  of  the  saint,  followed  him  through  towns,  and  became 
half  a  Christian. 

This  same  St.  Francis  had  such  a  detestation  of  the  good 
things  of  this  world,  that  he  would  never  suffer  his  followers 
to  touch  money.  A  friar  having  placed  in  a  window  some 
money  collected  at  the  altar,  he  desired  him  to  take  it  in  his 
mouth,  and  throw  it  on  the  dung  of  an  ass !  St.  Philip 
Nerius  was  such  a  lover  of  poverty,  that  he  frequently  prayed 
that  God  would  bring  him  to  that  state  as  to  stand  in  need 
of  a  penny,  and  find  nobody  that  would  give  him  one ! 

But  St.  Macaire  was  so  shocked  at  having  killed  a  louse, 
that  he  endured  seven  years  of  penitence  among  the  thorns 
and  briars  of  a  forest.  A  circumstance  which  seems  to  have 
reached  Moliere,  who  gives  this  stroke  to  the  character  of 
his  TartufTe : — 

1]  s'impute  h,  p^ch^  la  raoindre  bagatelle; 
Jusquss-la  qu'il  se  vint,  I'autre  jour,  s'acciiser 
D'avoir  pris  ime  puce  en  faisant  sa  pri^re, 
Et  de  I'avoir  tu^e  avec  trop  de  colore! 

I  give  a  miraculous  incident  respecting  two  pious  maidens. 
The  night  of  the  Nativity  of  Christ,  after  the  first  mass,  they 


LEGENDS.  153 

both  retired  into  a  solitary  spot  of  their  nunnery  till  the 
second  mass  was  rung.  One  asked  the  other,  "  Why  do  you 
want  two  cushions,  when  I  have  only  one  ? "  The  other 
replied,  "  I  would  place  it  between  us,  for  the  child  Jesus ; 
as  the  Evangelist  says,  where  there  are  two  or  three  persons 
assembled  I  am  in  the  midst  of  them." — This  being  done, 
they  sat  down,  feeling  a  most  lively  pleasure  at  their  fancy ; 
and  there  they  remained,  from  the  Nativity  of  Christ  to  that 
of  John  the  Baptist ;  but  this  great  interval  of  time  passed 
with  these  saintly  maidens  as  two  hours  would  appear  to 
others.  The  abbess  and  her  nuns  were  alarmed  at  their 
absence,  for  no  one  could  give  any  account  of  them.  In  the 
eve  of  St.  John,  a  cowherd,  passing  by  them,  beheld  a  beau- 
tiful child  seated  on  a  cushion  between  this  pair  of  runaway 
nuns.  He  hastened  to  the  abbess  with  news  of  these  stray 
sheep  ;  she  came  and  beheld  this  lovely  child  playfully  seated 
between  these  nymphs ;  they,  with  blushing  countenances, 
inquired  if  the  second  bell  had  already  rung  ?  Both  parties 
w^ere  equally  astonished  to  find  our  young  devotees  had  been 
there  from  the  Nativity  of  Jesus  to  that  of  St.  John.  The 
abbess  inquired  about  the  child  who  sat  between  them  ;  they 
solemnly  declared  they  saw  no  child  between  them  !  and  per- 
sisted in  their  story ! 

Such  is  one  of  these  miracles  of  "the  Golden  Legend," 
which  a  wicked  wit  might  comment  on,  and  see  nothing 
extraordinary  in  the  whole  story.  The  two  nuns  might  be 
missing  between  the  Nativities,  and  be  found  at  the  last  with 
a  child  seated  between  them. — They  might  not  choose  to 
account  either  for  their  absence  or  their  child — the  only  touch 
of  miracle  is,  that  they  asseverated,  they  saw  no  child — that  I 
confess  is  a  little  (child)  too  much. 

The  lives  of  the  saints  by  Alban  Butler  is  the  most  sensi- 
ble history  of  these  legends  ;  Ribadeneira's  lives  of  the  saints 
exhibit  more  of  the  legendary  spirit,  for  wanting  judgment 
and  not  faith,  he  is  more  voluminous  in  his  details.  The 
antiquary  may  collect  much  curious  philosophical  informa- 


154  THE  PORT-ROYAL  SOCIETY. 

tion,  concerning  the  manners  of  the  times,  from  these  singu- 
lar narratives. 


THE  PORT-ROYAL   SOCIETY. 

Every  lover  of  letters  has  heard  of  this  learned  society, 
which  contributed  so  greatly  to  establish  in  France  a  taste 
for  just  reasoning,  simplicity  of  style,  and  philosophical 
method.  Their  "  Logic,  or  the  Art  of  Thinking,"  for  its 
lucid,  accurate,  and  diversified  matter,  is  still  an  admirable 
woi-k ;  notwithstanding  the  writers  had  to  emancipate  them- 
selves from  the  barbarism  of  the  scholastic  logic.  It  was 
the  conjoint  labour  of  Arnauld  and  Nicolle.  Europe  has  bene- 
fited by  the  labours  of  these  learned  men :  but  not  many 
have  attended  to  the  origin  and  dissolution  of  this  literary 
society. 

In  the  year  1637,  Le  Maitre,  a  celebrated  advocate,  re- 
signed the  bar,  and  the  honour  of  being  Conseiller  d'JEtat, 
which  his  uncommon  merit  had  obtained  him,  though  then 
only  twenty-eight  years  of  age.  His  brother,  De  Sericourt, 
who  had  followed  the  military  profession,  quitted  it  at  the 
same  time.  Consecrating  themselves  to  the  service  of  reli- 
gion, they  retired  into  a  small  house  near  the  Port-Royal  of 
Paris,  where  they  were  joined  by  their  brothers  De  Sacy, 
De  St.  Elme,  and  De  Valmont.  Arnauld,  one  of  their  most 
illustrious  associates,  was  induced  to  enter  into  the  Jansenist 
controversy,  and  then  it  was  that  they  encountered  the  pow- 
erful persecution  of  the  Jesuits.  Constrained  to  remove 
from  that  spot,  they  fixed  their  residence  at  a  few  leagues 
from  Paris,  and  called  it  Port-Royal  des  Champs. 

These  illustrious  recluses  were  joined  by  many  distin- 
guished persons  who  gave  up  their  parks  and  houses  to  be 
appropriated  to  their  schools ;  and  this  community  was  called 
the  Society  of  Port-Royal. 


THE   PORT-ROYAL  SOCIETY.  155 

Here  were  no  rules,  no  vows,  no  constitution,  and  no  cells 
formed.  Prayer  and  study,  and  manual  labour,  were  their 
only  occupations.  They  applied  themselves  to  the  education 
of  youth,  and  raised  up  little  academies  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, where  the  members  of  Port-Royal,  the  most  illus- 
trious names  of  literary  France,  presided.  None  considered 
his  birth  entitled  him  to  any  exemption  from  their  public 
offices,  relieving  the  poor  and  attending  on  the  sick,  and  em- 
ploying themselves  in  their  farms  and  gardens ;  they  were 
carpenters,  ploughmen,  gardeners,  and  vine-dressers,  as  if 
they  had  practised  nothing  else ;  they  studied  physic,  and 
surgery,  and  law  ;  in  truth,  it  seems  that,  from  religious  mo- 
tives, these  learned  men  attempted  to  form  a  community  of 
primitive  Christianity. 

The  Duchess  of  Longueville,  once  a  political  chief,  sacri- 
ficed her  ambition  on  the  altar  of  Port-Royal,  enlarged  the 
monastic  inclosure  with  spacious  gardens  and  orchards,  built 
a  noble  house,  and  often  retreated  to  its  seclusion.  The 
learned  D'Andilly,  the  translator  of  Josephus,  after  his  studi- 
ous hours,  resorted  to  the  cultivation  of  fruit-trees  ;  and  the 
fruit  of  Port-Royal  became  celebrated  for  its  size  and  flavour. 
Presents  were  sent  to  the  Queen-Mother  of  France,  Anne 
of  Austria,  and  Cardinal  Mazarin,  who  used  to  call  it  "  fruit 
b^ni."  It  appears  that  "  families  of  rank,  affluence,  and  piety, 
who  did  not  wish  entirely  to  give  up  their  avocations  in  the 
world,  built  themselves  country-houses  in  the  valley  of  Port- 
Royal,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  society  of  its  religious  and  liter- 
ary inhabitants." 

In  the  solitudes  of  Port-Royal  Racine  received  his  educa- 
tion ;  and,  on  his  death-bed,  desired  to  be  buried  in  its  ceme- 
tery, at  the  feet  of  his  master  Ilamon.  Arnauld,  persecuted, 
and  dying  in  a  foreign  country,  still  cast  his  lingering  looks 
on  this  beloved  retreat,  and  left  the  society  his  heart,  which 
was  there  inurned. 

The  Duchess  of  Longueville,  a  princess  of  the  blood-royal, 
erected  a  house  near  the  Port-Royal,  and  was,  during  her 


156  THE  PORT-ROYAL  SOCIETY. 

life,  the  powerful  patroness  of  these  solitary  and  religioua 
men:  but  her  death,  in  1679,  was  the  fatal  stroke  which  dis- 
persed them  for  ever. 

The  envy  and  the  fears  of  the  Jesuits,  and  their  rancour 
against  Arnauld,  who  with  such  ability  had  exposed  their 
designs,  occasioned  the  destruction  of  the  Poi't-Royal  Society. 
Exinanite,  exinanite  usque  ad  fundamentum  in  ea  ! — "  An- 
nihilate it,  annihilate  it,  to  its  very  foundations  !  "  Such  are 
the  terms  of  the  Jesuitic  decree.  The  Jesuits  had  long  called 
the  little  schools  of  Port- Royal  the  hot-beds  of  heresy.  The 
Jesuits  obtained  by  their  intrigues  an  order  from  government 
to  dissolve  that  virtuous  society.  They  razed  the  buildings, 
and  ploughed  up  the  very  foundation  ;  they  exhausted  their 
hatred  even  on  the  stones,  and  profaned  even  the  sanctuary 
of  the  dead  ;  the  corpses  were  torn  out  of  their  graves,  and 
dogs  were  suffered  to  contend  for  the  rags  of  their  shrouds. 
The  memory  of  that  asylum  of  innocence  and  learning  was 
still  kept  alive  by  those  who  collected  the  engravings  repre- 
senting the  place  by  Mademoiselle  Hortemels.  The  poUce, 
under  Jesuitic  influence,  at  length  seized  on  the  plates  in  the 
cabinet  of  the  fair  artist. — Caustic  was  the  retort  courteous 
which  Arnauld  gave  the  Jesuits — "  I  do  not  fear  your  pen, 
but  its  knife." 

These  were  men  whom  the  love  of  retirement  had  united 
to  cultivate  literature,  in  the  midst  of  solitude,  of  peace,  and 
of  piety.  Alike  occupied  on  sacred,  as  well  as  on  profane 
writers,  their  writings  fixed  the  French  language.  The  ex- 
ample of  these  solitaries  shows  how  retirement  is  favourable 
to  penetrate  into  the  sanctuary  of  the  Muses. 

An  interesting  anecdote  is  related  of  Arnauld  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  dissolution  of  this  society.  The  dispersion  of 
these  great  men,  and  their  young  scholars,  was  lamented  by 
every  one  but  their  enemies.  Many  persons  of  the  highest 
rank  participated  in  their  sorrows.  The  excellent  Arnauld, 
in  that  moment,  was  as  closely  pursued  as  if  he  had  been  a 
felon. 


THE  PORT-ROYAL   SOCIETY.  WJ 

It  was  then  the  Duchess  of  Longueville  concealed  Amauld 
in  an  obscure  lodging,  who  assumed  the  dress  of  a  layman, 
wearing  a  sword  and  full-bottomed  wig.  Arnauld  was  at- 
tacked by  a  fever,  and  in  the  course  of  conversation  with  his 
physician,  he  inquired  after  news.  "  They  talk  of  a  new 
book  of  the  Port- Royal,"  replied  the  doctor,  "ascribed  to 
Arnauld  or  to  Sacy ;  but  I  do  not  believe  it  comes  from 
Sacy  ;  he  does  not  write  so  well." — "  How,  sir  !  "  exclaimed 
the  philosopher,  forgetting  his  sword  and  wig ;  "  believe  me, 
my  nephew  writes  better  than  I  do." — The  physician  eyed 
his  patient  with  amazement — he  hastened  to  the  duchess,  and 
told  her,  "  The  malady  of  the  gentleman  you  sent  me  to  is 
not  very  serious,  provided  you  do  not  suffer  him  to  see  any 
one,  and  insist  on  his.  holding  his  tongue."  The  duchess, 
alarmed,  immediately  had  Amauld  conveyed  to  her  palace. 
She  concealed  him  in  an  apartment,  and  persisted  to  attend 
him  herself. — "  Ask,"  she  said,  "  what  you  want  of  the  ser- 
vant, but  it  shall  be  myself  who  shall  bring  it  to  you." 

How  honourable  is  it  to  the  female  character,  that,  in 
many  similar  occurrences,  their  fortitude  has  proved  to  be 
eq^ual  to  their  sensibility  !  But  the  Duchess  of  Longueville 
contemplated  in  Arnauld  a  model  of  human  fortitude  which 
martyrs  never  excelled.  His  remarkable  reply  to  NicoUe, 
when  they  were  hunted  from  place  to  place,  should  never  be 
forgotten :  Arnauld  wished  NicoUe  to  assist  him  in  a  new 
work,  when  the  latter  observed,  "  "We  are  now  old,  is  it  not 
time  to  rest  ?  "  "  Rest ! "  returned  Arnauld,  "  have  we  not 
all  Eternity  to  rest  in  ?  "  The  whole  of  the  Arnauld  family 
were  the  most  extraordinary  instance  of  that  hereditary  char- 
acter which  is  continued  through  certain  families  :  here  it 
was  a  sublime,  and,  perhaps,  singular  union  of  learning  with 
religion.  The  Arnaulds,  Sacy,  Pascal,  Tillemont,  with  other 
illustrious  names,  to  whom  literary  Europe  will  owe  perpetual 
obligations,  combined  the  life  of  the  monastery  with  that  of 
the  libraiy. 


158     THE  PROGRESS   OF   OLD   AGE  IN  NEW   STUDIES. 


THE   PROGRESS   OF   OLD   AGE  IN  NEW   STUDIES. 

Of  the  pleasures  derivable  from  the  cultivation  of  the  arts, 
bciences,  and  literature,  time  will  not  abate  the  growing  pas« 
sion  ;  for  old  men  still  cherish  an  atfection  and  feel  a  youthful 
enthusiasm  in  those  pursuits,  when  all  others  have  ceased  to 
interest.  Dr.  Reid,  to  his  last  day,  retained  a  most  active 
curiosity  in  his  various  studies,  and  particularly  in  the  revo- 
lutions of  modern  chemistry.  In  advanced  life  we  may 
resume  our  former  studies  with  a  new  pleasure,  and  in  old 
age  we  may  enjoy  them  with  the  same  relish  with  which 
more  youthful  students  commence.  Adam  Smith  observed 
to  Dugald  Stewart,  that  "  of  all  the  amusements  of  old  age, 
the  most  grateful  and  sootliing  is  a  renewal  of  acquaintance 
with  the  favourite  studies  and  favourite  authors  of  youth — a 
remark,  adds  Stewart,  which,  in  his  own  case,  seemed  to  be 
more  particularly  exemplified  while  he  was  re-perusing,  with 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  student,  the  tragic  poets  of  ancient 
Greece.  I  have  heard  him  repeat  the  observation  more  than 
once,  whUe  Sophocles  and  Euripides  lay  open  on  his  table." 

Socrates  learnt  to  play  on  musical  instruments  in  his  old 
age  ;  Cato,  at  eighty,  thought  proper  to  learn  Greek ;  and 
Plutarch,  almost  as  late  in  his  life,  Latin. 

Theophrastus  began  his  admirable  work  on  the  Characters 
of  Men  at  the  extreme  age  of  ninety.  He  only  terminated 
his  literary  labours  by  his  death. 

JRonsard,  one  of  the  fathers  of  French  poetry,  applied 
himself  late  to  study.  His  acute  genius,  and  ardent  applica- 
tion, rivalled  those  poetic  models  which  he  admired  ;  and 
Boccaccio  was  thirty-five  years  of  age  when  he  commenced 
his  studies  in  polite  literature. 

The  great  Arnauld  retained  the  vigour  of  his  genius,  and 
the  command  of  his  pen,  to  the  age  of  eighty-two,  and  was 
still  the  great  Arnauld. 

Sir  Henry  Spelman  neglected  the  sciences  in  his  youth, 


THE   PROGRESS   OF   OLD   AGE  IN  NEW   STUDIES.      159 

but  cultivated  tLem  at  fifty  years  of  age.  His  early  years 
were  chiefly  passed  in  farming,  which  greatly  diverted  him 
from  his  studies  ;  but  a  remarkable  disappointment  respecting 
a  contested  estate  disgusted  him  with  these  rustic  occupations  : 
resolved  to  attach  himself  to  regular  studies,  and  literary 
society,  he  sold  his  farms,  and  became  the  most  learned  anti- 
quary and  lawyer. 

Colbert,  the  famous  French  minister,  almost  at  sixty,  re- 
turned to  his  Latin  and  law  studies. 

Dr.  Johnson  applied  himself  to  the  Dutch  language  but  a 
few  years  before  his  death.  The  Marquis  de  Saint  Aulaire, 
at  the  age  of  seventy,  began  to  court  the  Muses,  and  they 
cro\vned  liim  with  theu-  freshest  flowers.  The  verses  of  this 
French  Anacreon  are  full  of  fire,  delicacy,  and  sweetness. 

Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales  were  the  composition  of  his 
latest  years :  they  were  begun  in  liis  tifty-lburth  year,  and 
finished  in  his  sixty-first, 

Ludovico  Monaldesco,  at  the  extraordinary  age  of  115, 
wrote  the  memoirs  of  liis  times.  A  singular  exertion,  noticed 
by  Voltah-e ;  who  himself  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in- 
stances of  the  progress  of  age  in  new  studies. 

The  most  delightful  of  auto-biographies  for  artists  is  that 
of  Benvenuto  Cellini ;  a  work  of  great  originality,  which  was 
not  begun  till  "  the  clock  of  his  age  had  struck  fifty-eight." 

Koornhert  began  at  forty  to  learn  the  Latin  and  Greek 
languages,  of  wliich  he  became  a  master ;  several  students, 
who  afterwards  distinguished  themselves,  have  commenced 
as  late  in  life  their  literary  pursuits.  Ogilby,  the  translator 
of  Homer  and  Virgil,  knew  little  of  Latin  or  Greek  till  he 
was  past  fifty ;  and  Franklin's  philosophical  pursuits  began 
when  he  had  nearly  reached  his  fiftieth  year. 

Accorso,  a  great  lawyer,  being  asked  why  he  began  the 
study  of  the  law  so  late,  answered,  beginning  it  late,  he 
should  master  it  the  sooner. 

Diyden's  complete  works  form  the  largest  body  of  poetry 
from  the  pen  of  a  single  writer  in  the  English  language  ;  yet 


160      THE  PKOGRESS   OF   OLD   AGE  IN  NEW    STUDIES. 

he  gave  no  public  testimony  of  poetic  abilities  till  his  twenty- 
seventh  year.  In  his  sixty-eighth  year  he  proposed  to  trans- 
late the  whole  Iliad :  and  his  most  pleasing  productions  were 
written  in  his  old  age. 

Michael  Angelo  preserved  his  creative  genius  even  in 
extreme  old  age :  there  is  a  device  said  to  be  invented  by 
him,  of  an  old  man  represented  in  a  go-cart,  with  an  hour- 
glass upon  it;  the  inscription  Ancora  imparo ! — Yet  I  am 

LEARNING  ! 

We  have  a  literary  curiosity  in  a  favourite  treatise  with 
Erasmus  and  men  of  letters  of  that  period,  De  Ratione 
Studii,  by  Joachun  Sterck,  otherwise  Fortius  de  Ringelberg. 
The  enthusiasm  of  the  writer  often  carries  him  to  the  verge 
of  ridicule  ;  but  something  must  be  conceded  to  his  peculiar 
situation  and  feelings ;  for  Baillet  tells  us  that  this  method 
of  studying  had  been  formed  entirely  from  his  own  practical 
knowledge  and  hard  experience :  at  a  late  period  of  life  he 
had  commenced  his  studies,  and  at  length  he  imagined  that 
he  had  discovered  a  more  perpendicular  mode  of  ascending 
the  hiU  of  science  than  by  its  usual  circuitous  windings.  His 
work  has  been  compared  to  the  sounding  of  a  trumpet. 

Menage,  in  liis  Anti-BaiUet,  has  a  very  curious  apology 
for  writing  verses  in  his  old  age,  by  showing  how  many  poets 
amused  themselves  notmthstanding  their  grey  hairs,  and 
wrote  sonnets  or  epigi'ams  at  ninety. 

La  Casa,  in  one  of  his  letters,  humorously  said,  To  credo  cK 
10  faro  Sonnctti  venti  cinque  anni,  o  trenta,  poi  che  to  sard 
morto. — "I  think  I  may  make  sonnets  twenty-tive,  or  per- 
haps thirty  years,  after  I  shall  be  dead ! "  Petau  tells  us 
that  he  wrote  verses  to  solace  the  evils  of  old  age — 

Petavius  aeorer 


Cantabat  veteris  quserens  solatia  morbi. 

Malherbe  declares  the  honours  of  genius  were   his,  yet 
young — 

Je  les  posseday  jeune,  et  les  poss^de  eucoro 
A  la  fin  de  mes  Jours ! 


SPANISH  POETRY.  161 


SPANISH  POETRY. 


Pere  Bouhours  observes,  that  the  Spanish  poets  display 
an  extravagant  imagination,  which  is  by  no  means  destitute 
of  esprit — shall  we  say  wit  ?  but  which  evinces  little  taste  or 
judgment. 

Their  verses  are  much  in  the  style  of  our  Cowley — trivial 
points,  monstrous  metaphors,  and  quaint  conceits.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  the  Spanish  poets  imported  this  taste  from  the  time 
of  Marino  in  Italy ;  but  the  warmth  of  the  Spanish  climate 
appears  to  have  redoubled  it,  and  to  have  blown  the  kindled 
sparks  of  chimerical  fancy  to  the  heat  of  a  Vulcanian  forge. 

Lopes  de  Vega,  in  describing  an  afflicted  shepherdess,  in 

one  of  his  pastorals,  who  is  represented  weeping  near  the 

sea-side,  says,  "  That  the  sea  joyfully  advances  to  gather  her 

tears ;  and  that,  having  enclosed  them  in  shells,  it  converts 

them  into  pearls." 

"  Y  el  mar  como  imbidioso 
A  tierra  por  las  lagrimas  salia, 
Y  alegi-e  de  cogerlas 
Las  guarda  en  couchas,  y  convierte  en  perlas." 

Villegas  addresses  a  stream — "  Thou  who  runnest  over 
sands  of  gold,  with  feet  of  silver,"  more  elegant  than  our 
Shakspeare's  "  Thy  silver  skin  laced  with  thy  golden  blood," 
which  possibly  he  may  not  have  written.  Villegas  mon- 
strously exclaims,  "  Touch  my  breast,  if  you  doubt  the  power 
of  Lydia's  eyes — you  will  find  it  turned  to  ashes."  Again — 
"  Thou  art  so  great  that  thou  canst  only  imitate  thyself  with 
Ihy  own  greatness ; "  much  like  our  "  None  but  himself  can 
be  his  parallel." 

Gongora,  whom  the  Spaniards  once  greatly  admired,  and 
distinguished  by  the  epithet  of  The  Wonderful,  abounds  with 
these  conceits. 

He  imagines  that  a  nightingale,  who  enchantingly  varied 
her  notes,  and  sang  in  different  manners,  had  a  hundred 

VOL.  I.  11 


J  62  SPANISH  POETRY. 

thousand  other  nightingales  in  her  breast,  which  alternately 
sang  through  her  thi'oat — 

"  Con  diferencia  tal,  con  gracia  tanta, 
Aquel  ruysenor  llora,  que  sospecho 
Que  tiene  otros  cien  mil  dentro  del  pecho, 
Que  alternan  su  dolor  por  su  garganta." 

Of  a  young  and  beautiful  lady  he  says,  that  she  has  but  a 
few  years  of  life,  but  many  ages  of  beauty. 

"  Muchos  siglos  de  hennosura 
En  pocos  afios  de  edad." 

Many  ages  of  beauty  is  a  false  thought,  for  beauty  becomes 
not  more  beautiful  from  its  age ;  it  would  be  only  a  superan- 
nuated beauty.  A  face  of  two  or  three  ages  old  could  have 
but  few  chai'ms. 

In  one  of  his  odes  he  addresses  the  River  of  Madrid  by 
the  title  of  the  Duke  of  Streams,  and  the  Viscount  of  Rivers — 

'  Man^anares,  Man^anares, 
Os  que  en  todo  el  aguatismo, 
Estais  Duque  de  Arroyos, 
Y  Visconcle  de  los  Rios." 

He  did  not  venture  to  call  it  a  Spanish  Grandee,  for,  in 
fact,  it  is  but  a  shallow  and  dirty  stream ;  and  as  Quevedo 
wittily  informs  us,  "  Man^anares  is  reduced,  during  the  sum- 
mer season,  to  the  melancholy  condition  of  the  wicked  rich 
man,  who  asks  for  water  in  the  depths  of  hell."  Though  so 
small,  this  stream  in  the  time  of  a  flood  spreads  itself  over 
the  neighbouring  fields  ;  for  this  reason  Philip  the  Second 
built  a  bridge  eleven  hundred  feet  long  ! — A  Spaniard,  pass- 
ing it  one  day,  when  it  was  perfectly  dry,  observing  this 
superb  bridge,  archly  remarked,  "  That  it  would  be  proper 
that  the  bridge  should  be  sold  to  purchase  water." — JSa 
menester  vender  la  puente,  para  comprar  agua. 

The  following  elegant  translation  of  a  Spanish  madrigal  of 
the  kind  here  criticized  I  found  in  a  newspaper,  but  it  is  evi- 
dently by  a  master-hand. 


SAINT  EVREMOND.  163 

On  the  green  margin  of  the  land, 

Where  Guadalhorce  winds  his  way, 

My  lady  lay: 
With  golden  key  Sleep's  gentle  hand 

Had  closed  her  eyes  so  bright — 

Her  eyes,  two  suns  of  light — 

And  bade  his  balmy  dews 

Her  rosy  cheeks  suffuse. 
The  River  God  in  slumber  saw  her  laid: 

He  raised  his  dripping  head, 

With  weeds  o'erspread, 
Clad  in  his  wat'ry  robes  approach'd  the  maid, 
And  with  cold  kiss,  like  death. 

Drank  the  rich  perfume  of  the  maiden's  breath. 
The  maiden  felt  that  icy  kiss : 

Her  suns  unclosed,  their  Jlame 

FuU  and  unclouded  on  th'  intruder  came. 

Amazed  th'  intruder  felt 

His  frothy  body  melt 
And  heard  tiie  radiance  on  his  bosom  Mss ; 

And,  forced  in  blind  confusion  to  retire. 

Leapt  in  tJie  water  to  escape  thejire 


SAINT  EVREMOND. 

The  portrait  of  St.  Evremond  is  delineated  by  his  own 
hand. 

In  his  day  it  was  a  literary  fashion  for  writers  to  give  their 
own  portraits  ;  a  fashion  that  seems  to  have  passed  over  into 
our  country,  for  Farquhar  has  drawn  his  o\vn  character  in  a 
letter  to  a  lady.  Others  of  our  writers  have  given  these  self- 
miniatures.  Such  painters  are,  no  doubt,  great  flatterers, 
and  it  is  rather  their  ingenuity,  than  their  truth,  which  we 
admire  in  these  cabinet-pictures. 

"  I  am  a  philosopher,  as  far  removed  from  superstition  as 
from  impiety ;  a  voluptuary,  who  has  not  less  abhorrence  of 
debauchery,  than  inclination  for  pleasure ;  a  man,  who  has 
never  known  want  nor  abundance.  I  occupy  that  station  of 
life  which  is  contenmed  by  those  who  possess  every  thing 


IG4     MEN  OF  GENIUS  DEFICIENT  IN  CONVERSATION. 

envied  by  those  who  have  nothing ;  and  only  relished  by 
those  who  make  their  felicity  consist  in  the  exercise  of  their 
reason.  Young,  I  hated  dissipation ;  convinced  that  man 
must  possess  wealth  to  provide  for  the  comforts  of  a  long  hfe. 
Old,  I  disliked  economy ;  as  I  beheve  that  we  need  not 
greatly  dread  want,  when  we  have  but  a  short  time  to  be 
miserable.  I  am  satisfied  with  what  nature  has  done  for  me, 
nor  do  I  repine  at  fortune.  I  do  not  seek  m  men  what  they 
have  of  evU,  that  I  may  censure  ;  I  only  discover  what  they 
have  ridiculous,  that  I  may  be  amused.  I  feel  a  pleasure  in 
detecting  their  follies  ;  I  should  feel  a  greater  in  communicat- 
ing my  discoveries,  did  not  my  prudence  restrain  me.  Life, 
is  too  short,  according  to  my  ideas,  to  read  all  kinds  of  books, 
and  to  load  our  memories  with  an  endless  number  of  things 
at  the  cost  of  our  judgment.  I  do  not  attach  myself  to  the 
observations  of  scientitic  men  to  acquire  science ;  but  to  the 
most  rational,  that  I  may  strengthen  my  reason.  Sometimes, 
I  seek  for  more  delicate  minds,  that  my  taste  may  imbibe 
theu"  deUcacy  ;  sometimes,  for  the  gayer,  that  I  may  enrich 
my  genius  with  their  gaiety  ;  and,  although  I  constantly  read, 
I  make  it  less  my  occupation  than  my  pleasure.  In  religion, 
and  in  friendship,  I  have  only  to  paint  myself  such  as  I  am — ■ 
in  friendship  more  tender  than  a  philosopher ;  and  in  religion, 
as  constant  and  as  sincere  as  a  youth  who  has  more  simphcity 
than  experience.  My  piety  is  composed  more  of  justice  and 
charity  than  of  penitence.  I  rest  my  confidence  on  God,  and 
hope  every  thing  from  his  benevolence.  In  the  bosom  of 
providence  I  find  my  repose,  and  my  felicity." 


MEN  OF  GENIUS  DEFICIENT  IN  CONVERSATION. 

The  student  or  the  artist  who  may  shine  a  luminary  of 
learning  and  of  genius,  in  his  works,  is  found,  not  rarely,  to 
lie  obscured  beneath  a  heavy  cloud  in  colloquial  discourse. 


MEN  OF  GENIUS   DEFICIENT  IN  CONVERSATION.      165 

If  you  love  the  man  of  letters,  seek  him  in  the  privacies 
of  his  study.  It  is  in  the  hour  of  confidence  and  tranquillity 
that  his  genius  shall  elicit  a  ray  of  intelligence,  more  fervid 
than  the  labours  of  polished  composition. 

The  great  Peter  Coineille,  whose  genius  resembled  that 
of  our  Shakspeare,  and  who  has  so  forcibly  expressed  the  sub- 
lime sentiments  of  the  hero,  had  nothing  in  his  exterior  that 
indicated  his  genius ;  his  conversation  was  so  insipid  that  it 
never  failed  of  wearying.  Nature,  who  had  lavished  on  him 
the  gifts  of  genius,  had  forgotten  to  blend  with  them  her  more 
ordinary  ones.  He  did  not  even  speak  correctly  that  language 
of  which  he  was  such  a  master.  When  his  friends  repre- 
sented to  him  how  much  more  he  might  please  by  not 
disdaining  to  correct  these  trivial  en'ors,  he  would  smile,  and 
say — "/a»i  not  the  less  Peter  Corneille!" 

Descartes,  whose  habits  were  formed  in  solitude  and  medi- 
tation, was  silent  in  mixed  company ;  it  was  said  that  he  had 
received  his  intellectual  wealth  from  nature  in  solid  bars,  but 
not  in  current  coin ;  or  as  Addison  expressed  the  same  idea, 
by  comparing  himself  to  a  banker  who  possessed  the  wealth 
of  liis  friends  at  home,  though  he  carried  none  of  it  in  his 
pocket ;  or  as  that  judicious  moralist  NicoUe,  of  the  Port- 
Royal  Society,  said  of  a  scintillant  wit — "  He  conquers  me 
in  the  drawing-room,  but  he  surrenders  to  me  at  discretion 
on  the  staircase."  Such  may  say  with  Themistocles,  when 
asked  to  play  on  a  lute, — "  I  cannot  fiddle,  but  I  can  make  a 
little  village  a  great  city." 

The  deficiencies  of  Addison  in  conversation  are  well 
known.  He  preserved  a  rigid  silence  amongst  strangers ; 
but  if  he  was  silent,  it  was  the  silence  of  meditation.  How 
often,  at  that  moment,  he  laboured  at  some  future  Spec- 
tator ! 

Mediocrity  can  talk  ;  but  it  is  for  genius  to  observe. 

The  cynical  Mandcville  compared  Addison,  after  having 
passed  an  evening  in  his  company,  to  "  a  silent  parson  in  a 
tie-wig." 


1G6  VIDA. 

Virgil  was  heavy  in  conversation,  and  resembled  more  an 
ordinary  man  tlian  an  enchanting  poet. 

La  Fontaine,  says  La  Bruyere,  appeared  coarse,  heavj, 
and  stupid  ;  he  could  not  speak  or  describe  what  he  had  just 
seen ;  but  when  he  wrote  he  was  the  model  of  poetry. 

It  is  very  easy,  said  a  humorous  observer  on  La  Fontaine, 
to  be  a  man  of  wit,  or  a  fool ;  but  to  be  both,  and  that  too  in 
the  extreme  degree,  is  indeed  admirable,  and  only  to  be 
found  in  him.  This  observation  applies  to  that  fine  natural 
genius  Goldsmith.  Chaucer  was  more  facetious  in  his  tales 
than  in  his  conversation,  and  the  Countess  of  Pembroke 
used  to  rally  him  by  saying,  that  his  silence  was  more  agree- 
able to  her  than  his  conversation. 

Isocrates,  celebrated  for  his  beautiful  oratorical  composi- 
tions, was  of  so  timid  a  disposition,  that  he  never  ventured  to 
speak  in  public.  He  compared  himself  to  the  whetstone 
which  will  not  cut,  but  enables  other  things  to  do  so  ;  for  his 
productions  served  as  models  to  other  orators.  Vaucanson 
was  said  to  be  as  much  a  machine  as  any  he  had  made. 

Dryden  says  of  himself, — "  My  conversation  is  slow  and 
dull,  my  humour  saturnine  and  reserved.  In  short,  I  am 
none  of  those  who  endeavour  to  break  jests  in  company,  or 
make  repartees." 


VIDA. 

"What  a  consolation  for  an  aged  parent  to  see  his  child, 
by  the  efforts  of  his  own  merits,  attain  from  the  humblest 
obscurity  to  distinguished  eminence !  What  a  transport  for 
the  man  of  sensibility  to  return  to  the  obscure  dwelling  of 
his  parent,  and  to  embrace  him,  adorned  with  public  honours  ! 
Poor  Vida  was  deprived  of  this  satisfaction ;  but  he  is  placed 
higher  in  our  esteem  by  the  present  anecdote,  than  even  by 
that  classic  composition,  which  rivals  the  Art  of  Poetry  of 
'  his  great  master. 


THE   SCUDERIES  167 

Jerome  Vida,  after  having  long  served  two  Popes,  at  length 
attained  to  the  episcopacy.  Arrayed  in  the  robes  of  his  new 
dignity,  he  prepai'ed  to  visit  his  aged  parents,  and  felicitated 
himself  with  the  raptures  which  the  old  couple  would  feel  in 
embracing  their  son  as  their  bishop.  When  lie  arrived  at 
their  village,  he  learnt  that  it  was  but  a  few  days  since  they 
were  no  more.  His  sensibilities  were  exquisitely  pained. 
The  muse  dictated  some  elegiac  verse,  and  in  the  solemn 
pathos  deplored  the  death  and  the  disappointment  of  his 
parents. 


THE   SCUDERTES. 

Bien  henreux  Scudkry,  dont  la  fertile  plume 
Peut  tous  les  mois  sans  peine  enfanter  un  volume. 

BoiLEAU  has  written  this  couplet  on  the  Scuderies,  the 
brother  and  sister,  both  famous  in  their  day  for  compo-ing 
romances,  which  they  sometimes  extended  to  ten  or  twelve 
volumes.  It  was  the  favourite  literature  of  that  period,  as 
novels  are  now.  Our  nobility  not  unfrequently  condescended 
to  translate  these  voluminous  compositions. 

The  diminutive  size  of  our  modern  novels  is  undoubtedly 
an  improvement:  but,  in  resembling  the  size  of  primers,  it 
were  to  be  wished  that  their  contents  had  also  resembled 
their  inoffensive  pages.  Our  great-grandmothers  were  incom- 
moded with  overgrown  folios  ;  and,  instead  of  finishing  the 
eventful  history  of  two  lovers  at  one  or  two  sittings,  it  was 
sometimes  six  months,  including  Sundays,  before  they  could 
get  quit  of  their  Clelias,  their  Cyruses,  and  Parthenissas. 

Mademoiselle  Scudery  had  composed  ninety  volumes  ! 
She  had  even  finished  another  romance,  which  she  would 
not  give  the  public,  whose  taste,  she  perceived,  no  more 
relished  this  kind  of  works.  She  was  one  of  those  unfor- 
tunate authors  who,  living  to  more  than  ninety  years  of  age^ 
survive  their  own  celebrity. 


168  THE   SCUDERIES. 

She  had  her  panegyrists  in  her  day :  Menage  observes, 
"  What  a  pleasing  description  has  Mademoiselle  Scudery 
made,  in  her  Cyrus,  of  the  Uttle  court  at  Eambouillet !  A 
thousand  things  in  the  romances  of  this  learned  lady  render 
them  inestimable.  She  has  drawn  from  the  ancients  their 
happiest  passages,  and  has  even  improved  upon  them  ;  like 
the  prince  in  the  fable,  whatever  she  touches  becomes  gold. 
We  may  read  her  works  with  great  profit,  if  we  possess  a 
correct  taste,  and  love  instruction.  Those  who  censure  their 
length  only  show  the  littleness  of  their  judgment ;  as  if 
Homer  and  Virgil  were  to  be  despised,  because  many  of 
their  books  were  filled  with  episodes  and  incidents  that 
necessarily  retai'd  the  conclusion.  It  does  not  require  much 
penetration  to  observe,  that  Cyrus  and  Clelia  are  a  species 
of  the  epic  poem.  The  epic  must  embrace  a  number  of 
events  to  suspend  the  course  of  the  narrative ;  which,  only 
taking  in  a  part  of  the  hfe  of  the  hero,  would  terminate  too 
soon  to  display  the  skill  of  the  poet.  Without  this  artifice, 
the  charm  of  uniting  the  greater  part  of  the  episodes  to  the 
principal  subject  of  the  romance  would  be  lost.  Madem- 
oiselle de  Scudery  has  so  weU  treated  them,  and  so  aptly 
introduced  a  variety  of  beautiful  passages,  that  nothing  in 
this  kind  is  comparable  to  her  productions.  Some  expres- 
sions, and  certain  turns,  have  become  somewhat  obsolete  ; 
all  the  rest  will  last  for  ever,  and  outlive  the  criticisms  they 
have  undergone." 

Menage  has  here  certainly  uttered  a  false  prophecy.  The 
curious  only  look  over  her  romances.  They  contain  doubtless 
many  beautiful  inventions ;  the  misfortune  is,  that  time  and 
patience  are  rare  requisites  for  the  enjoyment  of  these  Diads 
in  prose. 

"  The  misfortune  of  her  having  written  too  abundantly  has 
occasioned  an  unjust  contempt,"  says  a  French  critic.  "  We 
confess  there  are  many  heavy  and  tedious  passages  in  her 
voluminous  romances  ;  but  if  we  consider  that  in  the  Clelia 
and  the  Artamene  are  to  be  found  inimitable  delicate  touches. 


TlIE   SCUDEKIES.  169 

and  many  splendid  parts  which  would  do  honour  to  some  of 
our  living  writers,  we  must  acknowledge  that  the  great  de- 
fects of  all  her  works  arise  from  her  not  writing  in  an  age 
when  taste  had  reached  the  acme  of  cultivation.  Such  is 
her  erudition,  that  the  French  place  her  next  to  the  cel- 
ebrated Madame  Dacier.  Her  works,  containing  many 
secret  intrigues  of  the  court  and  city,  her  readers  must 
have  keenly  rehshed  on  their  early  publication." 

Her  Artamene,  or  the  Great  C}tus,  and  principally  her 
Clelia,  are  representations  of  what  then  passed  at  the  court 
of  France.  The  Map  of  the  Kingdom  of  Tenderness,  in 
Clelia,  appeared,  at  the  time,  as  one  of  the  happiest  inveii 
tions.  This  once  celebrated  map  is  an  allegory  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  ditferent  kinds  of  Tenderness,  which  aro 
reduced  to  Esteem,  Gratitude,  and  Inclination.  The  map 
represents  three  rivers,  which  have  these  three  names,  and 
on  which  are  situated  three  towns  called  Tenderness :  Ten- 
derness on  Inclination  ;  Tenderness  on  Esteem  ;  and  Ten- 
derness on  Gratitude.  Pleasing  Attentions,  or  Petits  Soins, 
is  a  village  very  beautifully  situated.  Mademoiselle  de 
Scudery  was  extremely  proud  of  this  little  allegorical  map  ; 
and  had  a  terrible  controversy  with  another  writer  about  its 
originahty. 

George  Scudert,  her  brother,  and  inferior  in  genius, 
had  a  striking  singularity  of  character : — he  was  one  of  the 
most  complete  votaries  to  the  universal  divinity.  Vanity. 
With  a  heated  imagination,  entirely  destitute  of  judgment, 
his  miUtary  character  was  continually  exhibiting  itself  by 
that  peaceful  instrument  the  pen,  so  that  he  exhibits  a  most 
amusing  contrast  of  ai'dent  feelings  in  a  cool  situation ;  not 
hberally  endowed  with  genius,  but  abounding  with  its  sem- 
blance in  the  fire  of  eccentric  gasconade  ;  no  man  has  por- 
trayed his  own  chai'acter  with  a  bolder  colouring  than 
himself,  in  his  numerous  prefaces  and  addresses ;  sur- 
rounded by  a  thousand  seh-illusions  of  the  most  subhrae 
class,  every  thing  that  related  to  himself  had  an  Homeric 
grandeur  of  conception. 


170  THE   SCUDERIES. 

In  an  epistle  to  the  Duke  of  Montmorency,  Scudery  says, 
"  I  will  learn  to  write  with  my  left  hand,  that  my  right  hand 
may  more  nobly  be  devoted  to  your  service ; "  and  alluding 
to  his  pen  (plume),  declares  "  he  comes  from  a  family  who 
never  used  one,  but  to  stick  in  their  hats."  When  he  solicits 
small  favours  from  the  great,  he  assures  them  "  that  princes, 
must  not  think  him  importunate,  and  that  his  writings  are 
merely  inspired  by  his  own  individual  interest  ;  no !  (he 
exclaims)  I  am  studious  only  of  your  glory,  while  I  am 
careless  of  my  own  fortune."  And  indeed  to  do  him  justice, 
he  acted  up  to  these  romantic  feelings.  After  he  had  pub- 
lished his  epic  of  Alaric,  Christina  of  Sweden  proposed  to 
honour  him  with  a  chain  of  gold  of  the  value  of  five  hundred 
])ounds,  provided  he  would  expunge  from  his  epic  the  eulo- 
giums  he  bestowed  on  the  Count  of  Gardie,  whom  she  had 
disgraced.  The  epical  soul  of  Scudery  magnanimously 
scorned  the  bribe,  and  replied,  that  "  If  the  chain  of  gold 
should  be  as  weighty  as  that  chain  mentioned  in  the  history 
of  the  Incas,  I  will  never  destroy  any  altar  on  wliich  I  have 
sacrificed ! " 

Proud  of  his  boasted  nobility  and  erratic  life,  he  thus  ad- 
dresses the  reader :  "  You  will  lightly  pass  over  any  faults 
in  my  work,  if  you  reflect  that  I  have  employed  the  greater 
part  of  my  life  in  seeing  the  finest  parts  of  Europe,  and  that 
I  have  passed  more  days  in  the  camp  than  in  the  library.  I 
have  used  more  matches  to  light  my  musket  than  to  hght 
my  candles  ;  I  know  better  to  arrange  columns  in  the  field 
than  those  on  paper ;  and  to  square  battalions  better  than 
to  round  periods."  In  liis  first  publication,  he  began  his 
literary  career  perfectly  in  character,  by  a  challenge  to  his 
critics ! 

He  is  the  author  of  sixteen  plays,  chiefly  heroic  tragedies ; 
children  who  all  bear  the  features  of  their  father.  He  first 
introduced,  in  his  "  L' Amour  Tyrannique,"  a  strict  observ- 
ance of  the  Aristotelian  unities  of  tune  and  place ;  and  the 
necessity  and  advantages  of  this  regulation  are  insisted  on, 


THE   SCUDERIES.  171 

which  only  shows  that  Aristotle's  art  goes  but  little  to  the 
composition  of  a  pathetic  tragedy.  In  his  last  drama,  "  Ar- 
minius,"  he  extravagantly  scattei's  his  panegyrics  on  its  fifteen 
predecessors ;  but  of  the  present  one  he  has  the  most  exalted 
notion :  it  is  the  quintessence  of  Scudery !  An  ingenious 
critic  calls  it  "  The  downfall  of  mediocrity  !  "  It  is  amusing 
to  listen  to  this  blazing  preface  : — "  At  length,  reader,  nothing 
remains  for  me  but  to  mention  the  great  Arminius  which  I 
now  present  to  you,  and  by  wliich  I  have  resolved  to  close 
my  long  and  laborious  course.  It  is  indeed  my  master-piece  ! 
and  the  most  finished  work  that  ever  came  from  my  pen  ;  for 
whether  we  examine  the  fable,  the  manners,  the  sentiments, 
or  the  versification,  it  is  certain  that  I  never  performed  any 
thing  so  just,  so  great,  nor  more  beautiful ;  and  if  my  labours 
could  ever  deserve  a  crown,  I  would  claim  it  for  this  work ! " 
The  actions  of  this  singular  personage  were  in  unison  with 
his  writings  :  he  gives  a  pompous  description  of  a  most  un- 
important government  which  he  obtained  near  Marseilles, 
but  all  the  grandeur  existed  only  in  our  author's  heated 
imagination.  Bachaumont  and  de  la  Chapelle  describe  it, 
in  their  playful  "  Voyage  : " 

Mais  il  faut  vous  parler  du  fort, 
Qui  sans  doute  est  une  merveille; 
C'est  notre  dame  de  la  garde ! 
Gouvernement  commode  et  beau, 
A  qui  suffit  pour  tout  garde, 
Un  Suisse  avec  sa  hallebarde 
Peint  sur  la  porte  du  chateau ! 

A  fort  very  commodiously  guarded  ;   only  requiring  one  sen- 
tinel with  his  halbert — painted  on  the  door  ! 

In  a  poem  on  his  disgust  with  the  world,  he  tells  us  how 
intimate  he  has  been  with  princes :  Europe  has  known  him 
through  all  her  provinces  ;  he  ventured  every  thing  in  a 
tliousand  combats  : 

L'on  me  vit  obetr,  Ton  me  vit  commander, 

£t  mon  poll  tout  poudreux  a  blanchi  sous  les  armes; 


J72  DE  LA  ROCHEFOUCAULT. 

H  est  peu  de  beaux  arts  oil  je  ne  sois  instruit; 
En  prose  et  en  vers,  mon  nom  fit  quelque  bruit; 
Et  par  plus  d'un  chemin  je  pai-vius  a  la  gloLre. 

IMITATED. 

Princes  were  proud  my  friendship  to  proclaim. 
And  Europe  gazed,  where'er  her  hero  came  I 
I  grasp' d  the  laurels  of  heroic  strife. 
The  thousand  perils  of  a  soldier's  life; 
Obedient  in  the  ranks  each  toilful  day! 
Though  heroes  soon  command,  they  first  obey. 
'T  was  not  for  me,  too  long  a  time  to  yield  I 
Bom  for  a  chieftain  in  the  tented  field ! 
Around  my  plumed  helm,  my  silvery  hair 
Hung  like  an  honour'd  wreath  of  age  and  caro! 
The  finer  arts  have  charm'd  my  studious  hours. 
Versed  in  their  mysteries,  skilful  in  their  powers; 
In  verse  and  prose  my  equal  genius  glow'd, 
Pursuing  glory  by  no  single  road ! 

Such  was  the  vain  George  Scudery!  whose  heart,  how- 
ever, was  warm :  poverty  could  never  degrade  him  ;  adversity 
never  broke  down  his  magnanimous  spirit ! 


DE  LA  ROCHEFOUCAULT. 

The  maxims  of  this  noble  author  are  in  the  hands  of 
every  one.  To  those  who  choose  to  derive  every  motive  and 
every  action  from  the  solitary  principle  of  self-love,  they  are 
inestimable.  They  form  one  continued  satire  on  human 
nature ;  but  they  are  not  reconcilable  to  the  feelings  of  the 
man  of  better  sympathies,  or  to  him  who  passes  through  life 
with  the  firm  integrity  of  virtue.  Even  at  court  we  find  a 
Sully,  a  Malesherbes,  and  a  Clarendon,  as  well  as  a  Roche- 
foucault  and  a  Chesterfield. 

The  Duke  de  la  Rochefoucault,  says  Segrais,  had  not 
studied ;  but  he  was  endowed  with  a  wonderful  degree  of 
discernment,   and   knew   the   world    perfectly   well.      This 


PRIOR'S   HANS   CARVEL.  173 

afforded  him  opportunities  of  making  reflections,  and  reducing 
into  maxims  those  discoveries  which  he  had  made  in  the 
heart  of  man,  of  which  lie  disphiyed  an  admirable  knowl> 
edge. 

It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  observation,  that  this  celebrated 
French  duke  could  never  summon  resolution,  at  his  election, 
to  address  the  Academy.  Although  chosen  a  member,  he 
never  entered,  for  such  was  his  timidity,  that  he  could  not 
face  an  audience  and  deliver  the  usual  compliment  on  his 
introduction ;  he  whose  courage,  whose  birth,  and  whose 
genius,  were  alike  distinguished.  The  fact  is,  as  appears  by 
Mad.  de  Sevigne,  that  Rochefoucault  lived  a  close  domestic 
life  ;  there  must  be  at  least  as  much  theoretical  as  practical 
knowledge  in  the  opinions  of  such  a  retired  philosopher. 

Chesterfield,  our  English  Eochefoucault,  we  are  also 
informed,  possessed  an  admirable  knowledge  of  the  heart  of 
man ;  and  he  too  has  drawn  a  similar  picture  of  human 
nature.  These  are  two  noble  authors  whose  chief  studies 
seem  to  have  been  made  in  courts.  May  it  not  be  possible, 
allowing  these  authors  not  to  have  written  a  sentence  of 
apocrypha,  that  the  fault  lies  not  so  much  in  human  nature 
as  in  the  satellites  of  Pow^er  breathing  their  corrupt  atmos- 
phere ? 


PRIOR'S  HANS  CARVEL. 

Were  we  to  investigate  the  genealogy  of  our  best  modem 
stories,  we  should  often  discover  the  illegitimacy  of  our  fa- 
vourites ;  and  retrace  them  frequently  to  the  East.  My  well- 
read  friend  Douce,  had  collected  materials  for  such  a  work. 
The  genealogies  of  tales  would  have  gratified  the  curious  in 
literature. 

The  story  of  the  ring  of  Hans  Carvel  is  of  very  ancient 
standing,  as  are  most  of  the  tales  of  this  kind. 

Menage  says  that   Poggius,  who  died  in   1459,  has  the 


174  PRIOR'S  HANS   CARVEL. 

merit  of  its  invention ;  but  I  suspect  he  only  related  a  very 
popular  story. 

Rabelais,  who  has  given  it  in  his  peculiar  manner,  changed 
its  original  name  of  Philelphus  to  that  of  Hans  Carvel. 

This  title  is  likewise  in  the  eleventh  of  Les  Cent  Nouvelles 
Nouvelles  collected  in  14G1,  for  the  amusement  of  Louis  XL 
when  Dauphin,  and  living  in  solitude. 

Ariosto  has  borrowed  it,  at  the  end  of  his  fifth  Satire ;  but 
has  fairly  appropriated  it  by  his  pleasant  manner. 

In  a  collection  of  novels  at  Lyons,  in  1555,  it  is  introduced 
into  the  eleventh  novel. 

Celio  Malespini  has  it  again  in  page  288  of  the  second 
part  of  his  Two  Hundred  Novels,  printed  at  Venice  in  1 G09. 

Fontaine  has  prettily  set  it  off,  and  an  anonymous  writer 
has  composed  it  in  Latin  Anacreontic  verses;  and  at  length 
our  Prior  has  given  it  with  equal  gaiety  and  freedom.  After 
Ariosto,  La  Fontaine,  and  Prior,  let  us  hear  of  it  no  more ; 
yet  this  has  been  done,  in  a  manner,  however,  which  here 
cannot  be  told. 

Voltaire  has  a  curious  essay  to  show  that  most  of  our  best 
modern  stories  and  plots  originally  belonged  to  the  eastern 
nations,  a  fact  which  has  been  made  more  evident  by  recent 
researches.  The  Amjihitryon  of  Moliere  was  an  imitation 
of  Plautus,  who  borrowed  it  fi'om  the  Greeks,  and  they  took 
it  from  the  Indians !  It  is  given  by  Dow  in  his  History 
of  Hindostan.  In  Captain  Scott's  Tales  and  Anecdotes 
from  Arabian  writers,  we  are  surprised  at  finding  so 
many  of  our  favourites  very  ancient  orientalists. — The 
Ephesian  Matron,  versified  by  La  Fontaine,  was  borrowed 
from  the  Italians  ;  it  is  to  be  found  in  Petronius,  and  Petro- 
nius  had  it  from  the  Greeks.  But  where  did  the  Greeks 
find  it  ?  In  the  Arabian  Tales !  And  from  whence  did  the 
Arabian  fabulists  borrow  it?  From  the  Chinese!  It  is 
found  in  Du  Halde,  who  collected  it  from  the  Versions  of 
the  Jesuits. 


THE  STUDENT  IN  THE  METROPOLIS.  175 


THE   STUDENT  IN   THE  METROPOLIS. 

A  MAN  of  letters,  more  intent  on  the  acquisitions  of  litera- 
ture than  on  the  intrigues  of  politics,  or  the  speculations  of 
commerce,  may  find  a  deeper  solitude  in  a  populous  metropo- 
lis than  in  the  seclusion  of  the  country. 

The  student,  who  is  no  flatterer  of  the  little  passions  of 
men,  will  not  be  much  incommoded  by  their  jiresence. 
Gibbon  paints  his  own  situation  in  the  heart  of  the  fashion- 
able world:  "I  had  not  been  endowed  by  art  or  nature 
with  those  happy  gifts  of  confidence  and  address  which 
unlock  every  door  and  every  bosom.  While  coaches  were 
rattling  through  Bond-sti-eet,  I  have  passed  many  a  solitary 
evening  in  my  lodging  with  my  books.  I  withdrew  without 
reluctance  from  the  noisy  and  extensive  scene  of  crowds 
without  company,  and  dissipation  without  pleasure."  And 
even  after  he  had  published  the  first  volume  of  his  History, 
he  observes  that  in  London  his  confinement  was  solitary  and 
sad  ;  "  the  many  forgot  my  existence  when  they  saw  me 
no  longer  at  Brookes's,  and  the  fevf  who  sometimes  had 
a  thought  on  their  friend  were  detained  by  business  or 
pleasure,  and  I  was  proud  and  happy  if  I  could  prevail 
on  my  bookseller,  Elmsly,  to  enliven  the  dulness  of  the 
evening." 

A  situation,  very  elegantly  described  in  the  beautifully 
pohshed  verses  of  Mr.  Rogers,  in  his  "Epistle  to  a  Friend:" 

When  from  his  classic  dreams  the  student  steals 
Amid  the  buz  of  crowds,  the  whirl  of  wheels, 
To  muse  unnoticed,  while  around  him  press 
'Ihe  meteor-forms  of  equipage  and  dress; 
Alone  in  wonder  lost,  he  seems  to  stand 
A  very  stranger  in  his  native  land. 

He  compares  the  student  to  one  of  the  Seven  Sleepers  in 
the  ancient  legend. 

Descartes  residing  in  the  commercial  city  of  Amsterdam 


176       THE  STUDENT  IN  THE  METROPOLIS. 

writing  to  Balzac,  illustrates  these  descriptions  with  great 
force  and  vivacity. 

"  You  wish  to  retire  ;  and  your  intention  is  to  seek  the 
solitude  of  the  Chartreux,  or,  possibly,  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  provinces  of  France  and  Italy.  I  would  rather 
advise  you,  if  you  wish  to  observe  mankind,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  lose  yourself  in  the  deepest  solitude,  to  join  me  in 
Amsterdam.  I  prefer  this  situation  to  that  even  of  your  de- 
licious villa,  where  I  spent  so  great  a  part  of  the  last  year ; 
for,  however  agreeable  a  country-house  may  be,  a  thousand 
little  conveniences  are  wanted,  which  can  only  be  found  in  a 
city.  One  is  not  alone  so  frequently  in  the  country  as  one 
could  wish :  a  number  of  impertinent  visitors  are  continually 
besieging  you.  Here,  as  all  the  world,  except  myself,  is  oc- 
cupied in  commerce,  it  depends  merely  on  myself  to  live  un- 
known to  the  world.  I  walk  every  day  amongst  immense 
ranks  of  people,  with  as  much  tranquillity  as  you  do  in  your 
green  alleys.  The  men  I  meet  with  make  the  same  impi-es- 
sion  on  my  mind  as  would  the  trees  of  your  forests,  or  the 
flocks  of  sheep  grazing  on  your  common.  The  busy  hum  too 
of  these  merchants  does  not  disturb  one  more  than  the  pur- 
ling of  your  brooks.  If  sometimes  I  amuse  myself  in  contem- 
plating their  anxious  motions,  I  receive  the  same  pleasure 
which  you  do  in  observing  those  men  who  cultivate  your  land  ; 
for  I  reflect  that  the  end  of  all  their  labours  is  to  embellish 
the  city  which  I  inhabit,  and  to  anticipate  all  my  wants.  If 
you  contemplate  with  delight  the  fruits  of  your  orchards, 
with  all  the  rich  promises  of  abundance,  do  you  think  I  feel 
less  in  observing  so  many  fleets  that  convey  to  me  the  pro- 
ductions of  either  India  ?  What  spot  on  earth  could  you 
find,  which,  like  this,  can  so  interest  your  vanity  and  gratify 
vour  taste  ?  " 


THE  TALMUD.  177 


THE  TALMUD. 

The  Jews  have  their  Talmud  ;  the  Catholics  their 
Legends  of  Saints;  and  the  Turks  their  Sonnah.  The 
Protestant  has  nothing  but  his  Bible.  The  former  are 
three  kindred  works.  Men  have  imagined  that  the  more 
there  is  to  be  believed,  tlie  more  are  the  merits  of  the  be- 
liever. Hence  all  traditiouists  formed  the  orthodox  and  the 
strongest  party.  The  word  of  God  is  lost  amidst  those  heaps 
of  human  inventions,  sanctioned  by  an  order  of  men  con- 
nected with  religious  duties;  they  ought  now,  however,  to 
be  regarded  rather  as  Curiosities  of  Literature.  I  give 
a  sufficiently  ample  account  of  the  Talmud  and  the  Le- 
gends ;  but  of  the  Sonnah  I  only  know  that  it  is  a  collec- 
tion of  the  traditional  opinions  of  the  Turkish  prophets,  di- 
recting the  observance  of  petty  superstitions  not  mentioned 
in  the  Koran. 

The  Talmud  is  a  collection  of  Jewish  traditions  which 
have  been  orally  preserved.  It  compi-ises  the  Mishna, 
which  is  the  text;  and  the  Gemara,  its  commentary.  The 
whole  forms  a  complete  system  of  the  learning,  ceremonies, 
civil,  and  canon  laws  of  the  Jews ;  treating  indeed  on  all 
subjects ;  even  gardening,  manual  arts,  cfcc.  The  rigid  Jews 
persuaded  themselves  that  these  traditional  explications  are 
of  divine  origin.  The  Pentateuch,  say  they,  was  written  out 
by  their  legislator  before  his  death  in  thirteen  copies,  distrib- 
uted among  the  twelve  tribes,  and  the  remaining  one  deposit- 
ed in  the  Ark.  The  oral  law  Moses  continuallv  taught  in 
the  Sanhedrim,  to  the  elders  and  the  rest  of  the  people.  The 
law  was  repeated  four  times ;  but  the  interpretation  was  de- 
livered only  by  word  of  moxdh  from  geneiation  to  generation. 

In  the  fortieth  year  of  the  flight  from  Egypt,  the  memory 
of  the  people  became  treacherous,  and  Moses  was  constrained 
to  repeat  this  oral  law,  which  iiad  been  conveyed  by  succes- 
sive traditionists.    Such  is  the  account  of  honest  David  Levi; 

VOL,.  I.  12 


178  THE  TALMUD. 

it  is  the  creed  of  every  rabbin. — David  believed  in  every 
thinj^,  but  in  Jesus. 

This  history  of  the  Talmud  some  inclined  to  suppose 
apocryphal,  even  among  a  few  of  the  Jews  themselves. 
When  these  traditions  first  appeared,  the  keenest  controversy 
has  never  been  able  to  determine.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
there  existed  traditions  among  the  Jews  in  the  time  of  Jesus 
Christ.  About  the  second  century,  they  were  industriously 
collected  by  Rabbi  Juda  the  Holy,  the  prince  of  the  rabbins, 
who  enjoyed  the  favour  of  Antoninus  Pius.  He  has  the  merit 
of  giving  some  order  to  this  multifarious  collection. 

It  appears  that  the  Talmud  was  compiled  by  certain  Jew- 
ish doctors,  who  were  solicited  for  this  purpose  by  their 
nation,  that  they  might  have  something  to  oppose  to  their 
Christian  adversaries. 

The  learned  W.  Wotton,  in  his  curious  "  Discourses  "  on 
the  traditions  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  supplies  an  analy- 
sis of  this  vast  collection ;  he  has  translated  entire  two  divis- 
ions of  this  code  of  traditional  laws,  with  the  original  text 
and  the  notes. 

There  are  two  Talmuds :  the  Jerusalem  and  the  Baby- 
lonian. The  last  is  the  most  esteemed,  because  it  is  the  most 
bulky. 

R.  Juda,  the  prince  of  the  rabbins,  committed  to  writing 
all  these  traditions,  and  arranged  them  under  six  general 
heads,  called  orders  or  classes.  The  subjects  are  indeed 
curious  for  philosophical  inquirers,  and  multifarious  as  the 
events  of  civil  life.  Every  order  is  formed  of  treatises ; 
every  treatise  is  divided  into  chapters ;  every  chapter  into 
mishnas,  which  word  means  mixtures  or  miscellanies,  in  the 
form  of  aphorisms.  In  the  first  part  is  discussed  what 
relates  to  seeds,  fruits,  and  trees;  in  the  second,  feasts  ;  in 
the  third,  women,  their  duties,  their  disorders,  marriages,  di- 
vorces, contracts,  and  nuptials  ;  in  the  fourth,  are  treated  the 
damages  or  losses  sustained  by  beasts  or  men  ;  of  things 
found  ;    deposits  ;    usuries  ;   rents  ;  farms  ;  partnershi2)S  in 


THE  TALMUD.  I79 

commerce  ;  inheritance  ;  sales  and  purchases  ;  oaths  ;  wit- 
nesses ;  arrests;  idolatri/ ;  and  here  are  named  those  by 
whom  the  oral  hiw  was  ] eceived  and  preserved.  In  the  filth 
part  are  noticed  sacrijices  and  holy  things ;  and  the  sixth 
treats  of  -pnrijications  ;  vessels  ;  furniture  ;  clothes;  houses; 
leprosy  ;  baths  ;  and  numerous  other  articles.  All  this  forms 
the  ^Iisii.VA. 

The  Ge.mara,  that  is,  the  complement  or  perfection,  con- 
tains the  Disputes  and  the  Opinions  of  the  Rabbins  on 
the  oral  traditions.  Their  last  decisions.  It  must  be  con- 
fessed that  absurdities  are  sometimes  elucidated  by  other 
absurdities  ;  but  there  are  many  admirable  things  in  this  vast 
repository.  The  Jews  have  such  veneration  for  this  compi- 
lation, that  they  compare  the  holy  writings  to  icater,  and  the 
Talmud  to  ioi7ie  ;  the  text  of  Moses  to  pepper,  but  the  Tal- 
mud to  aromatics.  Of  the  twelve  hours  of  which  the  day  is 
composed,  they  tell  us  tliat  God  employs  nine  to  study  the 
Talmud,  and  only  three  to  read  the  written  law  ! 

St.  Jerome  appears  evidently  to  allude  to  this  work,  and 
notices  its  "  Old  Wives'  Tales,"  and  the  filthiness  of  some  of 
its  matters.  The  truth  is,  that  the  rabbins  resembled  the 
Jesuits  and  Casuists;  and  Sanchez's  work  on  "  Matrimonio" 
is  well  known  to  agitate  matters  with  such  scrupulous  nice- 
ties,  as  to  become  the  most  offensive  thing  possible.  But  as 
among  the  schoolmen  and  the  casuists  there  have  been  great 
men,  the  same  happened  to  these  Gemaraists.  Maimonides 
was  a  pillar  of  light  among  their  darkness.  The  antiquity 
of  this  work  is  of  itself  suflicient  to  make  it  very  curious. 

A  specimen  of  the  topics  may  be  shown  from  the  table 
and  contents  of  "  Mishnic  Titles."  In  the  order  of  seeds, 
we  find  the  following  heads,  which  present  no  uninteresting 
picture  of  the  pastoral  and  pious  ceremonies  of  the  ancient 
Jews. 

The  Mishna,  entitled  the  Corner,  i.  e.  of  the  field.  The 
laws  of  gleaning  are  commanded  according  to  Leviticus  ;  xix. 
9,  10.     Of  the  corner  to  be  left  in  a  corn-field.     When  tltc 


180  THE  TALMUD. 

corner  is  due  and  when  not.  Of  the  forgotten  sheaf.  Of 
the  ears  of  corn  left  in  gathering.  Of  grapes  left  upon  the 
vine.  Of  olives  left  upon  the  trees.  When  and  where  the 
poor  may  lawfully  glean.  What  sheaf,  or  olives,  or  grapes, 
may  be  looked  uj)on  to  be  forgotten,  and  what  not.  Who 
are  the  proper  witnesses  concerning  the  poor's  due,  to  ex- 
empt it  from  tithing,  &c.  The  distinguished  uncircumci;<ed 
fruit : — it  is  unlawful  to  eat  of  the  fruit  of  any  tree  till  the 
fifth  year  of  its  growth  :  the  first  three  years  of  its  bearing, 
it  is  called  uncircunicised ;  the  fourth  is  offered  to  God  ;  and 
the  fifth  may  be  eaten. 

The  Mishna,  entitled  Heterogeneous  Mixtures,  contains 
several  curious  horticultural  particulars.  Of  divisions  be- 
tween garden-beds  and  fields,  that  the  produce  of  the  several 
sorts  of  grains  or  seeds  may  appear  distinct.  Of  the  distance 
between  every  species.  Distances  between  vines  planted  in 
corn-fields  from  one  another  and  from  the  corn ;  between 
vines  planted  against  hedges,  walls,  or  espaliers,  and  any 
thing  sowed  near  them..  Various  cases  relating  to  vineyards 
planted  near  any  forbidden  seeds. 

In  their  seventh,  or  sabbatical  year,  in  which  the  produce 
of  all  estates  was  given  up  to  the  poor,  one  of  these  regula- 
tions is  on  the  different  work  which  must  not  be  omitted  in 
the  sixth  year,  lest  (because  the  seventh  being  devoted  to 
the  poor)  the  produce  should  be  unfairly  diminished,  and  the 
public  benefit  arising  from  this  law  be  frustrated.  Of  what- 
ever is  not  perennial,  and  produced  that  year  by  the  earth, 
no  money  may  be  made ;  but  what  is  perennial  may  be  sold. 

On  priests'  tithes,  we  have  a  regulation  concerning  eating 
the  fruits  carried  to  the  place  where  they  are  to  be  separated. 

The  order  women  is  very  copious.  A  husband  is  obliged 
to  forbid  his  wife  to  keep  a  particular  man's  company  before 
two  witnesses.  Of  the  waters  of  jealousy  by  which  a  sus- 
pected woman  is  to  be  tried  by  drinking,  we  find  ample  par- 
ticulars. The  ceremonies  of  clotliing  the  accused  woman  at 
Ker  trial.     Pregnant  women,  or  who  suckle,  are  not  obliged 


THE  TALMUD.  181 

to  drink  ;  for  the  rahbins  seem  to  be  well  convinced  of  the 
effects  of  the  imagination.  Of  their  divorces  many  are  the 
laws ;  and  care  is  taken  to  paiticulaiize  bills  of  divorces 
written  by  men  in  delirium  or  dangerously  ill.  One  party  of 
the  rabbins  will  not  allow  of  any  divorce,  unless  something 
light  was  found  in  the  woman's  character,  while  another  (the 
Pharisees)  allow  divorces  even  when  a  woman  has  only  been 
so  unfortunate  as  to  suffer  her  husband's  soup  to  be  burnt! 

In  the  order  of  da7nages,  containing  rules  how  to  tax  the 
damages  done  by  man  or  beast,  or  other  casualties,  their  dis- 
tinctions are  as  nice  as  their  cases  are  numerous.  What 
beasts  are  innocent  and  what  convict.  By  the  one  they  mean 
creatures  not  naturally  used  to  do  mischief  in  any  particular 
way  ;  and  by  the  other,  those  that  naturally,  or  by  a  vicious 
habit,  are  mischievous  that  way.  The  tooth  of  a  beast  is 
convict,  when  it  is  proved  to  eat  its  usual  food,  the  property 
of  another  man,  and  full  restitution  must  be  made  ;  but  if  a 
beast  that  is  used  to  eat  fruits  and  herbs  gnaws  clothes  or 
damages  tools,  which  are  not  its  usual  food,  the  owner  of  the 
beast  shall  pay  but  half  the  damage  when  committed  on  the 
property  of  the  injured  person  ;  but  if  the  injury  is  commit- 
ted on  the  property  of  the  person  who  does  the  damage,  he 
is  free,  because  the  beast  gnawed  what  was  not  its  usual 
food.  As  thus  ;  if  the  beast  of  A.  gnaws  or  tears  the  clothes 
of  B.  in  B.'s  house  or  grounds.  A.'  shall  pay  half  the  dam- 
ages ;  but  if  B.'s  clothes  are  injured  in  A.'s  grounds  by  A.'s 
beast,  A.  Is  free,  for  what  had  B.  to  do  to  put  his  clothes  in 
A.'s  grounds  ?  They  made  such  subtile  distinctions,  as  when 
an  ox  gores  a  man  or  beast,  the  law  inquired  into  the  habits 
of  the  beast ;  whether  it  was  an  ox  that  used  to  gore,  or  an 
ox  that  was  not  used  to  gore.  However  acute  these  niceties 
sometimes  were,  they  were  often  ridiculous.  No  beast  could 
be  convicted  of  being  vicious  till  evidence  was  given  that  he 
had  done  mischief  three  successive  days  ;  but  if  he  leaves  oflf 
those  vicious  tricks  for  three  days  more,  he  is  innocent  again. 
An  ox  may  be  convict  of  goring  an  ox  and  not  a  man,  or  of 


182  THE  TALMUD. 

goring  a  man  and  not  an  ox :  nay,  of  goring  on  the  Sabbath, 
and  not  on  a  woi'king  day.  Their  aim  was  to  make  the  pun- 
ishment depend  on  the  proofs  of  the  design  of  the  beast  that 
did  the  injury  ;  but  this  attempt  evidently  led  them  to  dis- 
tinctions much  too  subtile  and  obscure.  Thus  some  rabbins 
say  that  the  morning  prayer  of  the  Shenidh  must  be  read  at 
the  time  they  can  distinguish  blue  from  white  ;  but  another, 
more  indulgent,  insists  it  may  be  when  we  can  distinguish 
blue  from  green  !  which  latter  colours  are  so  near  akin  as  to 
require  a  stronger  light.  "With  the  same  remarkable  acute- 
ness  in  distinguishing  things,  is  their  law  respecting  not 
touching  fire  on  the  Sabbath.  Among  those  which  are  speci- 
fied in  this  constitution,  the  rabbins  allow  the  minister  to  look 
over  young  children  by  lamp-light,  but  he  shall  not  read  him- 
self. The  minister  is  forbidden  to  read  by  lamp-light,  lest  he 
should  trim  his  lamp  ;  but  he  may  direct  the  children  where 
they  should  read,  because  that  is  quickly  done,  and  there 
Avould  be  no  danger  of  his  trimming  his  lamp  in  their  pres- 
ence, or  suffering  any  of  them  to  do  it  in  his.  All  these 
regulations,  which  some  may  conceive  as  minute  and  frivo- 
lous, show  a  gi'eat  intimacy  with  the  human  heart,  and  a 
spirit  of  pi'ofound  observation  which  had  been  capable  of 
achieving  great  purposes. 

The  owner  of  an  innocent  beast  only  pays  half  the  costs 
for  the  mischief  incurred.  Man  is  always  convict,  and  for 
all  mischief  he  does  he  must  pay  full  costs.  However  there 
are  casual  damages, — as  when  a  man  pours  water  accident- 
ally on  another  man ;  or  makes  a  thorn-hedge  which  annoys 
his  neighbour ;  or  falling  down,  and  another  by  stumbling  on 
him  incurs  harm :  how  such  compensations  are  to  be  made. 
He  that  has  a  vessel  of  another's  in  keeping,  and  removes  it, 
but  in  the  removal  breaks  it,  must  swear  to  his  own  integrity  ; 
i.  e.  that  he  had  no  design  to  break  it.  All  offensive  or  noisy 
trades  were  to  be  carried  on  at  a  certain  distance  from  a 
town.  Where  there  is  an  estate,  the  sons  inherit,  and  the 
daughters  are  maintained ;  but  if  there  is  not  enough  for  all, 


THE   TALMUD.  183 

tlie  (laughters  are  maintained,  and  the  sons  must  get  tlieh 
living  as  they  can,  or  even  beg.  The  contrary  to  this  excel- 
lent ordination  has  been  observed  in  Europe. 

These  lew  titles  may  enable  the  reader  to  form  a  general 
notion  of  the   several  subjects  on  which  the  Mishna  treats. 
The  Gemara  or  Commentary  is  often  overloaded  with  inepti 
tudes  and  ridiculous  subtiltles.     For  instance  in  the  article  of 
"  Negative  Oaths."     If  a  man  swears  he  will   eat  no  bread, 
and  does  eat  all  sorts  of  bread,  in  that  case  the  perjury  is 
but  one  ;  but  if  he  swears  that  he  will  eat  nei  her  barley,  nor 
wheaten,  nor  rye-bread ;  the  perjury  is  multiplied  as  he  mul- 
tipli(!S  his  eating  of  the  several  sorts. — Again,  the  Pharisees 
and  the  Sadducees  had  strong  differences  about  touching  the 
holy  writings  with  their  hands.     The  doctors  ordained  that 
whoever  touched   the  book  of  the  law  must  not  eat  of  the 
truma  (first  fruits   of  the  wrought   produce  of  the   ground), 
till  they  had  washed  their  hands.    The  reason  they  gave  was 
this.     In  times  of  persecution,  they  used  to  hide  those  sacred 
books  in  secret  places,  and  good  men  would  lay  them  out  of 
the  way  when  they  had  done  reading  them.     It  was  possible 
then  that  these  rolls  of  the   law  might  be  gnawed  by  mice. 
The  hands  then  that  touched   these  books  when  they  took 
them  out  of  the  places  where   they  had  laid  them  up,  were 
supposed  to  be  unclean,  so  far  as  to  disable  them  from  eating 
the  truma  till  they  were  washed.   On  that  account  they  made 
this  a  general  rule,   that  if  any  part  of  the  Bible  (except 
Ecclesiastes,  because  that  excellent  book  their  sagacity  ac- 
counted less  holy  than  the  rest)  or  their  phylacteries,  or  the 
strings  of  their  phylacteries,  were  touched  by  one  who  had  a 
right  to  eat  the  truma,  he  might  not  eat  it  till  he  had  washed 
his  hands.     An  evidence  of  that  superstitious   trifling,  for 
which   the  Pharisees  and   the  later  Rabbins  have  been  so 
justly  reprobated. 

They  were  absurdly  minute  in  the  literal  observance  of 
their  vows,  and  as  shamefully  subtile  in  their  artful  evasion 
of  them.    The  Pharisees  could  be  easy  enough  to  themselves 


184  THE  TALMUD. 

when  convenient,  and  always  as  hard  and  unrelenting  as 
possible  to  all  others.  They  quibbled,  and  dissolved  their 
vows,  with  experienced  casuistry.  Jesus  reproaches  the 
Pharisees  in  Matthew  xv.  and  Mark  vii.  for  tiagrantly  vio- 
lating the  fifth  commandment,  by  allowing  the  vow  of  a  son, 
perhaps  made  in  hasty  anger,  its  full  force,  when  he  had 
sworn  that  his  father  should  never  be  the  better  for  him,  or 
any  thing  he  had,  and  by  which  an  indigent  father  might  be 
suffered  to  starve.  There  is  an  express  ca?e  to  this  purpose 
in  the  Mishna,  in  the  title  of  Vows.  The  reader  may  be 
amused  by  the  story : — A  man  made  a  vow  that  his  father 
should  not  profit  by  him.  This  man  afterwards  made  a  wed- 
ding-feast for  his  son,  and  wishes  his  father  should  be  present ; 
but  he  cannot  invite  him,  because  he  is  tied  up  by  his  vow. 
He  invented  this  expedient: — He  makes  a  gift  of  the  court 
in  which  the  feast  was  to  be  kept,  and  of  the  feast  itself,  to  a 
third  person  in  trust,  that  his  father  should  be  invited  by  that 
third  person,  with  the  other  company  whom  he  at  first  de- 
signed. This  third  person  then  says, — If  these  things  you 
thus  have  given  me  are  mine,  I  will  dedicate  them  to  God, 
and  then  none  of  you  can  be  the  better  for  them.  The  son 
replied, — I  did  not  give  them  to  you  that  you  should  conse- 
crate them.  Then  the  third  man  said, — Yours  was  no  dona- 
tion, only  you  were  willing  to  eat  and  drink  with  your  father. 
Thus,  says  R.  Juda,  they  dissolved  each  other's  intentions ; 
and  when  the  case  came  before  the  rabbins,  they  decreed, 
that  a  gift  which  may  not  be  consecrated  by  the  person  ic 
whom  it  is  given  is  not  a  gift. 

Tlie  following  extract  from  the  Talmud  exhibits  a  subtile 
mode  of  reasoning,  which  the  Jews  adopted  when  the  learned 
of  Rome  sought  to  persuade  them  to  conform  to  their  idolatry. 
It  forms  an  entire  Mishna,  entitled  Seder  Nezikin,  Avoda 
Zara,  iv.  7,  on  idolatrous  worship,  translated  by  Wotton. 

"  Some  Roman  senators  examined  the  Jews  in  this  man- 
ner : — If  God  hath  no  delight  in  the  worship  of  idols,  why 
did  he  not  destroy  them  ?     The  Jews  made  answer, — If  men 


RABBINICAL   STORIES.  185 

had  worshipped  only  things  of  which  the  world  had  had  no 
need,  he  would  have  destroyed  the  object  of  their  worship ;  but 
they  also  worship  the  sun  and  moon,  stars  and  planets ;  and 
then  he  must  have  destroyed  his  world  for  the  sake  of  these 
deluded  men.  But  still,  said  the  Romans,  why  does  not  God 
destroy  the  things  which  the  world  does  not  want,  and  leave 
those  things  which  the  world  cannot  be  without?  Because, 
replied  the  Jews,  this  would  strengthen  the  hands  of  such  as 
worship  these  necessary  things,  who  would  then  say, — Ye 
allow  now  that  these  are  gods,  since  they  are  not  destroyed." 


RABBINICAL   STORIES. 

The  preceding  article  furnishes  some  of  the  more  serious 
investigations  to  be  found  in  the  Talmud.  Its  levities  may 
amuse.  I  leave  untouched  the  gross  ob.-cenities  and  immoral 
decisions.  The  Talmud  contains  a  vast  collection  of  stories, 
apologues,  and  jests ;  many  display  a  vein  of  pleasantry,  and 
at  times  have  a  wildness  of  invention  which  sufficiently  mark 
the  features  of  an  eastern  parent.  Many  extravagantly  pue- 
rile were  designed  merely  to  recreate  their  young  students. 
When  a  rabbin  was  asked  the  reason  of  so  much  nonsense, 
he  replied  that  the  ancients  had  a  custom  of  introducing  mu- 
sic in  their  lectures,  which  accompaniment  made  them  more 
agreeable  ;  but  that  not  having  musical  instruments  in  the 
schools,  the  rabbins  invented  these  strange  stories  to  arouse 
attention.  This  was  ingeniously  said  ;  but  they  make  miser- 
able work  when  they  pretend  to  give  mystical  interpretations 
to  pure  nonsense. 

In  1711,  a  German  professor  of  the  Oriental  languages. 
Dr.  Eisenmenger,  published  in  two  large  volumes,  quarto, 
his  "Judaism  Discovered,"  a  ponderous  labour,  of  which  the 
scope  was  to  ridicule  the  Jewish  traditions. 

I  shall  give  a  dangerous  adventure  into  which  King  David 


18G  RABBINICAL   STORIES. 

was  drawn  by  the  devil.  The  king  one  day  hunting,  Satan 
appeared  before  him  in  the  Hkeness  of  a  roe.  David  dis- 
charged an  arrow  at  him,  but  missed  his  aim.  He  pursued 
the  feigned  roe  into  the  land  of  the  Philistines.  Ishbi,  the 
brother  of  Goliath,  instantly  recognized  the  king  as  him  who 
had  slain  that  giant.  He  bound  him,  and  bending  him  neck 
and  heels,  laid  him  under  a  wine-press  in  order  to  press  hun 
to  death.  A  miracle  saves  David.  The  earth  beneath  him 
became  soft,  and  Ishbi  could  not  press  Avine  out  of  him.  That 
evening  in  the  Jewish  congregation  a  dove,  whose  wings 
Avere  covered  with  silver,  appeared  in  great  perplexity ;  and 
evidently  signified  the  king  of  Israel  was  in  trouble.  Abis- 
hai,  one  of  the  king's  counsellors,  inquiring  for  the  king,  and 
finding  him  absent,  is  at  a  loss  to  proceed,  for  according  to 
the  Mishna,  no  one  may  ride  on  the  king's  horse,  nor  sit  upon 
his  throne,  nor  use  his  sceptre.  The  school  of  the  rabbins, 
however,  allowed  these  things  in  time  of  danger.  On  this 
Abishai  vaults  on  David's  horse,  and  (with  an  Oriental  meta- 
phor) the  land  of  the  Philistines  leaped  to  him  instantly! 
Arrived  at  Ishbi's  house,  he  beholds  his  mother  Orpa  spin- 
ning. Perceiving  the  Isi'aelite,  she  snatched  up  her  spinning- 
wheel  and  threw  it  at  him,  to  kill  him  ;  but  not  hitting  him, 
she  desired  him  to  bring  the  spinning-wheel  to  her.  He  did 
not  do  this  exactly,  but  returned  it  to  her  in  such  a  way  that 
she  never  asked  any  more  for  her  spinning-wheel.  When 
Ishbi  saw  this,  and  recollecting  that  David,  though  tied  up 
neck  and  heels,  was  still  under  the  wine-press,  he  cried  out, 
"  There  are  now  two  who  will  destroy  me  !  "  So  he  threw 
David  high  up  into  the  air,  and  stuck  his  spear  into  the 
ground,  imagining  that  David  would  foil  upon  it  and  perish. 
But  Abishai  pronounced  the  magical  name,  which  the  Tal- 
mudists  frequently  make  use  of,  and  it  caused  David  to  hover 
between  earth  and  heaven,  so  that  he  fell  not  down !  Both 
at  length  unite  against  Ishbi,  and  observing  that  two  young 
lions  should  kill  one  lion,  find  no  difficulty  in  getting  rid  of 
the  brother  of  Goliath  ! 


RABBINICAL  STORIES.  187 

Of  Solomon,  another  favourite  hero  of  the  Talmudists,  a 
fii.e  Arabian  story  is  told.  This  king  was  an  adept  in  necro- 
mancy, and  a  male  and  a  female  devil  were  always  in  waiting 
for  an  emergency.  It  is  observable,  that  the  Arabians,  who 
have  many  stories  concerning  Solomon,  always  describe  hira 
as  a  magician.  His  adventures  with  Aschmedai,  the  prince 
of  devils,  are  numerous ;  and  they  both  (th(!  king  and  the 
devil)  served  one  another  many  a  slip2)ery  trick.  One  of  the 
most  remarkable  is  when  Aschmedai,  who  was  prisoner  to 
Solomon,  the  king  having  contrived  to  possess  himself  of  the 
devil's  seal-ring,  and  chained  him,  one  day  offered  to  answer 
an  unholy  question  put  to  him  by  Solomon,  provided  he  re- 
turned him  his  seal-ring  and  loosened  his  chain.  The  imper- 
tinent curiosity  of  Solomon  induced  him  to  commit  this  folly. 
Instantly  Aschmedai  swallowed  the  monarch ;  and  stretching 
out  his  wings  up  to  the  firmament  of  heaven,  one  of  his  feet 
remaining  on  the  earth,  he  spit  out  Solomon  four  hundred 
leagues  from  him.  This  was  done  so  privately,  that  no  one 
knew  anything  of  the  matter.  Aschmedai  then  assumed  the 
likeness  of  Solomon,  and  sat  on  his  throne.  From  that  hour 
did  Solomon  say,  '•'This  then  is  the  reward  of  all  my  labour," 
according  to  Ecclesiasticus,  i.  3  ;  which  this  means,  one  rab- 
bin says,  his  walking-staff;  and  another  insists  was  his  ragged 
coat.  For  Solomon  went  a  begging  from  door  to  door ;  and 
wherever  he  came  he  uttered  these  words  :  "  I,  the  preacher, 
was  king  over  Isi-ael  in  Jerusalem."  At  length  coming  be- 
fore the  council,  and  still  repeating  these  remarkable  words, 
■without  addition  or  variation,  the  rabbins  said,  "  This  means 
something :  for  a  fool  is  not  constant  in  his  tale  ! "  They 
asked  the  chamberlain,  if  the  king  frequently  saw  him  ?  and 
he  replied  to  them,  No !  Then  they  sent  to  the  queens,  to 
ask  if  the  king  came  into  their  apartments?  and  they  an- 
swered. Yes!  The  rabbins  tlien  sent  them  a  message  to  take 
notice  of  his  feet;  for  the  feet  of  devils  are  like  the  feet  of 
cocks.  The  queens  acquainted  them  that  his  majesty  always 
came  in  slippers,  but  forced  thera  to  embrace  at  times  for- 


188  RABBINICAL  STORIES. 

bidden  by  the  law.  He  had  attempted  to  lie  with  his  mother 
Bathsheba,  whom  he  had  almost  torn  to  piece?.  At  this  the 
rabbins  assembled  in  great  haste,  and  taking  the  beggar  with 
them,  they  gave  him  the  ring  and  the  chain  in  which  the 
great  magical  name  was  engraven,  and  led  him  to  the  palace. 
Aschmedai  was  sitting  on  the  throne  as  the  real  Solomon 
entered ;  but  instantly  he  shrieked  and  flew  away.  Yet  to 
his  last  day  was  Solomon  afraid  of  the  prince  of  devils,  and 
had  his  bed  guarded  by  the  valiant  men  of  Israel,  as  is  written 
m  Cant.  iii.  7,  8. 

They  frequently  display  much  humour  in  their  inventions, 
as  in  the  following  account  of  the  manners  and  morals  of  an 
infamous  town,  which  mocked  at  all  justice.  There  were  in 
Sodom  four  judges,  who  were  liars,  and  deriders  of  justice. 
When  any  one  had  struck  his  neighbour's  wife,  and  caused 
her  to  miscarry,  these  judges  thus  counselled  the  husband  : — 
"  Give  her  to  the  oflTender,  that  he  may  get  her  with  child  for 
thee."  When  any  one  had  cut  off  an  ear  of  his  neighbour's 
ass,  they  said  to  the  owner, — "  Let  him  have  the  ass  till  the 
ear  is  grown  again,  that  it  may  be  returned  to  thee  as  thou 
wishest."  When  any  one  had  wounded  his  neighbour,  they 
told  the  wounded  man  to  "  give  him  a  fee  for  letting  him 
blood."  A  toll  was  exacted  in  passing  a  certain  bridge ;  but 
if  any  one  chose  to  wade  through  the  water,  or  walk  round 
about  to  save  it,  he  was  condemned  to  a  double  toll.  Eleasar, 
Abraham's  servant,  came  thither,  and  they  wounded  liim. 
When,  before  the  judge,  he  was  ordered  to  pay  his  fee  for 
having  his  blood  let,  Eleasar  flung  a  stone  at  the  judge,  and 
wounded  him;  on  which  the  judge  said  to  him, — "What 
meaneth  this  ?  "  Eleasar  replied, — "  Give  him  who  wounded 
me  the  fee  that  is  due  to  myself  for  wounding  thee."  The 
people  of  this  town  had  a  bedstead  on  which  they  laid  travel- 
lers who  asked  to  rest.  If  any  one  was  too  long  for  it,  they 
cut  oflP  his  legs ;  and  if  he  was  shorter  than  the  bedstead, 
they  strained  him  to  its  head  and  foot.  When  a  beggar  came 
to  this  town,  every  one  gave  him  a  penny,  on  which  was  in- 


RABBINICAL  STORIES.  189 

Bcribed  the  donor's  name  ;  but  they  would  sell  him  no  bread, 
nor  let  him  escape.  When  the  beggar  died  from  hunger, 
then  they  came  about  him,  and  each  man  took  back  his 
penny.  These  stories  are  curious  inventions  of  keen  mockery 
and  malice,  seasoned  with  humour.  It  is  said  some  of  the 
famous  decisions  of  Sancho  Panza  are  to  be  found  in  (he 
Talmud. 

Abraham  is  said  to  have  been  jealous  of  his  wives,  and 
built  an  enchanted  city  for  them.  He  built  an  iron  city  and 
put  them  in.  The  walls  were  so  high  and  dark,  the  sun  could 
not  be  seen  in  it.  He  gave  *  them  a  bowl  full  of  pearls  and 
jewels,  which  sent  forth  a  light  in  this  dark  city  equal  to  the 
sun.  Noah,  it  seems,  when  in  the  ark,  had  no  other  light  than 
jewels  and  pearls.  Abraham,  in  travelling  to  Egypt,  brought 
with  him  a  chest.  At  the  custom-house  the  officers  exacted 
the  duties.  Abraham  would  have  readily  paid,  but  desired 
they  would  not  open  the  chest.  They  first  insisted  on  the 
duty  for  clothes,  which  Abraham  consented  to  pay ;  but  then 
they  thought,  by  his  ready  acquiescence,  that  it  might  be 
gold.  Abraham  consents  to  pay  for  gold.  They  now  sus- 
pected it  might  be  silk.  Abraham  was  willing  to  pay  for  silk, 
or  more  costly  pearls  ;  and  Abraham  generously  consented  to 
pay  as  if  the  chest  contained  the  most  valuable  of  things. 
It  was  then  they  resolved  to  open  and  examine  the  chest ; 
and,  behold,  as  soon  as  that  chest  was  opened,  that  great 
lustre  of  human  beauty  broke  out  which  made  such  a  noise  in 
the  land  of  Egypt ;  it  was  Sarah  herself!  The  jealous  Abra- 
ham, to  conceal  her  beauty,  had  locked  her  up  in  this  chest. 

The  whole  creation  in  these  rabbinical  fancies  is  strangely 
gigantic  and  vast.  The  works  of  eastern  nations  are  full  of 
these  descri{)tions  ;  and  Hesiod's  Thoogony,  and  Milton's 
battles  of  angels,  are  puny  in  comparison  with  these  rabbin- 
ical heroes,  or  rabbinical  things.  Mountains  are  hurled,  with 
all  their  woods,  with  great  ease,  and  creatures  start  into  ex- 
istence too  terrible  for  our  conceptions.  The  winged  monster 
in  the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  called  the  Roc,  is  evidently  one  of 


190  RABBINICAL  STORIES. 

the  creatures  of  rabbinical  fancy ;  it  would  sometimes,  when 
very  hungry,  seize  and  fly  away  with  an  elephant.  Captain 
Cook  found  a  bird's  nest  in  an  island  near  New  Holland, 
built  with  sticks  on  the  ground,  six-and-twenty  feet  in  circum- 
ference, and  near  three  feet  in  height.  But  of  the  rabbinical 
birds,  lish,  and  animals,  it  is  not  probable  any  circumnavi- 
gator will  ever  trace  even  the  slightest  vestige  or  resem- 
blance. 

One  of  their  birds,  when  it  spreads  its  wings,  blots  out  the 
sun.  An  egg  from  another  fell  out  of  its  nest,  and  the  white 
thereof  broke  and  glued  about  three  hundred  cedar-trees,  and 
overflowed  a  village.  One  of  them  stands  up  to  the  lower  joint 
of  the  leg  in  a  river,  and  some  mariners,  imagining  the  water 
was  not  deep,  were  hastening  to  bathe,  when  a  voice  from 
heaven  said, — "  Step  not  in  there,  for  seven  years  ago  there 
a  carpenter  dropped  his  axe,  and  it  hath  not  yet  reached  the 
bottom." 

The  following  passage,  concerning  fat  geese,  is  perfectly  in 
the  style  of  these  rabbins  :  "  A  rabbin  once  saw  in  a  desert 
a  flock  of  geese  so  fat  that  their  feathers  fell  off,  and  the 
rivers  flowed  in  fat.  Then  said  I  to  them,  shall  we  have  part 
of  you  in  the  other  world  when  the  Messiah  shall  come  ? 
And  one  of  them  lifted  up  a  wing,  and  another  a  leg,  to 
signify  these  parts  we  should  have.  We  should  otherwise 
have  had  all  parts  of  these  geese  ;  but  we  Israelites  shall  be 
called  to  an  account  touching  these  fat  geese,  because  their 
sufferings  are  owing  to  us.  It  is  our  iniquities  that  have  de- 
layed the  coming  of  the  Messiah ;  and  these  geese  suffer 
greatly  by  reason  of  their  excessive  fat,  which  daily  and 
daily  increases,  and  will  increase  till  the  Messiah  comes  ! " 

What  the  manna  was  which  fell  in  the  -svilderness,  has 
often  been  disputed,  and  still  is  disputable ;  it  was  sufficient 
for  the  rabbms  to  have  found  in  the  Bible  that  the  taste  of 
it  ^\■as  "  as  a  wafer  made  Avith  honey,"  to  have  raised  their 
fancy  to  its  pitch.  They  declare  it  was  "  like  oil  to  children, 
honey  to  old  men,  and  cakes  to  middle  age."     It  had  every 


RABBINICAL  STORIES.  191 

kind  of  taste  except  that  of  cucumbers,  molons,  garlic,  and 
onions,  and  leeks,  for  these  were  those  Egyptian  roots  which 
the  Israelites  so  much  regretted  to  have  lost.  This  manna 
had,  however,  the  quality  to  accommodate  itself  to  the  palate 
of  those  who  did  not  murmur  in  the  wilderness ;  and  to  these 
it  became  fish,  liesli,  or  fowl. 

The  rabbins  never  advance  an  absurdity  without  quoting  a 
text  in  Scripture ;  and  to  substantiate  this  fact  they  quote 
Deut.  ii.  7,  where  it  is  said,  "  Through  this  great  wilderness 
these  forty  years  the  Lord  thy  God  hath  been  with  thee,  and 
thoit  hast  lacked  nothing  !  "  St.  Austin  repeats  this  explana- 
tion of  the  rabbins,  that  the  faithful  ibund  in  this  manna  the 
taste  of  their  favourite  food  !  However,  the  Israelites  could 
not  have  found  all  these  benefits,  as  the  rabbins  tell  us  ;  for 
in  Numbers  xi.  6,  they  exclaim,  "  There  is  nothing  at  all 
besides  this  manna  before  our  eyes !  "  They  had  just  said 
that  they  remembered  the  melons,  cucumbers,  &c.,  which 
they  had  eaten  of  so  freely  in  Egypt.  One  of  the  hyper- 
boles of  the  rabbins  is,  that  the  manna  fell  in  such  mountains, 
that  the  kings  of  the  east  and  the  west  beheld  them ;  which 
they  found  on  a  passage  in  the  23d  Psalm ;  "  Thou  pre- 
parest  a  table  before  me  in  the  presence  of  mine  enemies  !  " 
These  may  serve  as  specimens  of  the  forced  interpretations 
on  which  their  grotesque  fables  are  founded. 

Their  detestation  of  Titus,  their  great  conqueror,  appears 
by  the  following  wild  invention.  After  having  narrated  cer- 
tain things  too  shameful  to  read,  of  a  prince  whom  Josephus 
describes  in  far  different  colours,  they  tell  us  that  on  sea 
Titus  tauntingly  observed,  in  a  great  storm,  that  the  God  of 
the  Jews  was  only  powerful  on  the  water,  and  that,  there 
fore,  he  had  succeeded  in  drowning  Pharaoh  and  Sisera. 
"  Had  he  been  strong,  he  would  have  waged  war  with  me 
in  Jerusalem."  On  uttering  this  blasphemy,  a  voice  from 
heaven  said,  "  Wicked  man  !  I  have  a  little  creature  in  the 
world  which  shall  wage  war  with  thee ! "  When  Titus 
landed,  a   gnat    entered    his   nostrils,  and   for  seven    years 


192  ON  THE  CUSTOM    OF 

together  made  holes  in  his  brains.  When  liis  skull  was 
opened,  the  gnat  was  found  to  be  as  large  as  a  pigeon  :  the 
mouth  of  the  gnat  was  of  copper,  and  the  claws  of  iron.  A 
collection  which  has  recently  appeared  of  these  Talmudical 
stories  has  not  been  executed  with  any  felicity  of  selection. 
That  there  are,  however,  some  beautiful  inventions  in  the 
Talmud,  I  refer  to  the  story  of  Solomon  and  Sheba,  in  the 
present  volume. 


ON  THE  CUSTOM  OF  SALUTING  AFTER  SNEEZING. 

It  is  probable  that  this  custom,  so  universally  prevalent, 
originated  in  some  ancient  superstition  ;■  it  seems  to  have  ex- 
cited inquiry  among  all  nations. 

"  Some  Catholics,"  says  Father  Feyjoo,  "  have  attributed 
the  origin  of  this  custom  to  the  ordinance  of  a  pope.  Saint 
Gregory,  who  is  said  to  have  instituted  a  short  benediction 
to  be  used  on  such  occasions,  at  a  time  when,  during  a  pesti- 
lence, the  crisis  was  attended  by  sneezing,  and  in  most  cases 
followed  by  death." 

But  the  rabbins,  who  have  a  story  for  every  thing,  say, 
that,  before  Jacob,  men  never  sneezed  but  once,  and  then  im- 
mediately died:  they  assure  us  that  that  patriarch  was  the 
first  who  died  by  natural  disease ;  before  him  all  men  died 
by  sneezing ;  the  memory  of  which  was  ordered  to  be  pre- 
served in  all  nations,  by  a  command  of  every  prince  to  his  sub- 
jects to  employ  some  salutary  exclamation  after  the  act  of 
sneezing.  But  these  are  Talmudical  dreams,  and  only  serve  to 
prove  that  so  familiar  a  custom  has  always  excited  inquiry. 

Even  Aristotle  has  delivered  some  considerable  nonsense 
on  this  custom  ;  he  says  it  is  an  honourable  acknowledgment 
of  the  seat  of  good  sense  and  genius — the  head — to  distinguish 
it  from  two  other  offensive  eruptions  of  air,  which  are  never 
accompanied  by  any  benediction  from  the  by-standers.     The 


SALUTING  AFTER  SNEEZING.  193 

custom,  at  all  events,  existed  long  prior  to  Pope  Gregory. 
The  lover  in  Apuleius,  Gyton  in  Petronius,  and  allusions  to 
it  in  Pliny,  prove  its  antiquity ;  and  a  memoir  of  the  French 
Academy  notices  the  practice  in  the  New  AVorld,  on  the 
first  discovery  of  America.  Everywhere  man  is  saluted  for 
sneezing. 

An  amusing  account  of  the  ceremonies  which  attend  the 
sneezing  of  a  king  of  Monomotapa,  shows  what  a  national 
concern  may  be  the  sneeze  of  despotism. — Those  who  are 
near  his  pei'son,  when  tliis  happens,  salute  him  in  so  loud  a 
lone,  that  persons  in  the  ante-chamber  hear  it,  and  join  in 
the  acclamation  ;  in  the  adjoining  apartments  they  do  the 
same,  till  the  noise  reaches  the  street,  and  becomes  propa- 
gated throughout  the  city ;  so  that,  at  each  sneeze  of  his 
majesty,  results  a  most  horrid  cry  from  the  salutations  of 
many  thousands  of  his  vassals. 

When  the  king  of  Sennaar  sneezes,  his  courtiers  imme- 
diately turn  their  backs  on  him,  and  give  a  loud  slap  on  their 
right  thigh. 

With  the  ancients  sneezing  was  ominous  ;  from  the  right 
it  was  considered  auspicious  ;  and  Plutarch,  in  his  Life  of 
Themistocles,  says,  that  before  a  naval  battle  it  was  a  sign 
of  conquest !  Catullus,  in  his  pleasing  poem  of  Acme  and 
Septimus,  makes  this  action  from  the  deity  of  Love,  from  the 
left,  the  source  of  his  fiction.  The  passage  has  been  elegantly 
versifie<l  by  a  poetical  friend,  who  finds  authority  that  the 
gods  sneezing  on  the  right  in  heaven,  is  supposed  to  come  to 
us  on  earth  on  the  left. 

Cupid  sneezing  in  his  fli^lit, 
Once  was  heivrd  upon  the  right, 
Bodinw  woe  to  lovers  true; 
But  now  upon  the  left  he  flew, 
And  witli  sportinj^  sneeze  divine, 
Cave  to  joy  the  sacred  sign. 
Acm6  bent  her  lovely  face, 
Flush'd  with  rapture's  rosy  grace, 
Aad  those  eyes  that  swam  in  bliss, 
Prest  with  many  a  breathing  kiss; 

VOL.    I  13 


194  BONAVENTURE   DE  PERIERS. 

Breathing,  murmuring,  soft,  and  low, 

Thus  niiglit  life  for  ever  flow! 

"  Love  of  my  life,  and  life  of  love! 

Cupid  rules  our  fates  above, 

Ever  let  us  vow  to  join 

In  homage  at  his  happy  shrine." 

Cupid  heard  the  lovers  true, 

Again  upon  the  left  he  flew. 

And  with  sporting  sneeze,  divine, 

Renew'd  of  joy  the  sacred  styn  ! 


BONAVENTURE   DE   PERIERS. 

A  iiAPPV  art  in  the  relation  of  a  story  is,  doubtless,  a 
very  agreeable  talent ;  it  has  obtained  La  Fontaine  all  the 
apphiuse  which  his  charming  ?iah^ete  deserves. 

Of"  "  Bonaventure  de  JPen'ers,  Valet  de  Chamhre  de  la 
Royne  de  Navarre,''  there  are  three  little  volumes  of  tales 
in  prose,  in  the  quaint  or  the  coarse  pleasantry  of  tliat  day. 
The  following  is  not  given  as  the  best,  but  as  it  introduces 
a  novel  etymology  of  a  word  in  great  use  : — 

"  A  student  at  law,  who  studied  at  Poitiers,  had  tolerably 
improved  himself  in  cases  of  equity  ;  not  that  he  was  over- 
burthened  with  learning  ;  but  his  chief  deficiency  was  a  want 
of  assurance  and  confidence  to  display  his  knowledge.  His 
father,  passing  by  Poitiers,  recommended  him  to  read  aloud, 
and  to  render  his  memory  more  prompt  by  continued  exer- 
cise. To  obey  the  injunctions  of  his  father,  he  determined  to 
read  at  the  Ministery.  In  order  to  obtain  a  certain  quantity 
of  assurance,  he  went  every  day  into  a  garden,  which  was  a 
very  retired  spot,  being  at  a  distance  from  any  house,  and 
where  there  grew  a  great  number  of  fine  large  cabbages. 
Thus  for  a  long  time  he  pursued  his  studies,  and  repeated  his 
lectures  to  these  cabbages,  addressing  them  by  the  title  of 
gentlemer,  and  balancing  his  periods  to  them  as  if  they  had 
composed  an  audience  of  scholars.  After  a  fortnight  or  three 
weeks'  preparation,  lie  thought  it  was  higi\  time  to  take  the 


GROTIUS.  195 

chair ;  imagining  that  he  should  be  able  to  lecture  his 
Bcholars  as  well  as  he  had  before  done  his  cabbages.  He 
comes  forward,  he  begins  his  oration — but  before  a  dozen 
words  his  tongue  freezes  between  his  teeth  !  Confused,  and 
hardly  knowing  where  he  was,  all  he  could  bring  out  was — 
Domini,  Ego  bene  video  quod  non  estis  canles  ;  that  is  to 
say — for  there  are  some  who  will  have  every  thing  in  plain 
Enghsh — Gentlemen,  I  now  clearly  see  you  are  not  cabbages! 
3n  the  garden  he  could  conceive  the  cabbages  to  be  scholars  ; 
but  in  the  chair,  he  could  not  conceive  the  scholars  to  be 
cabbages." 

On  this  story  La  Monnoye  has  a  note,  which  gives  a  new 
origin  to  a  familiar  term. 

"  The  hall  of  the  School  of  Equity  at  Poitiers,  where  the 
Lustitutes  were  read,  was  called  La  Miiiisterie.  On  which 
head  Florimond  de  Remond  (book  vii.  ch.  11),  speaking  of 
Albert  Babinot,  one  of  the  fii-st  disciples  of  Calvin,  after 
having  said  he  was  called  '  The  good  man'  adds,  that  be- 
cause he  had  been  a  student  of  the  institutes  at  this  Minis- 
terie  of  Poitiers,  Calvin  and  others  styled  him  Mr.  Minister  ; 
from  whence,  afterwards,  Calvin  took  occasion  to  give  the 
name  of  Ministers  to  the  pastors  of  his  church." 


GROTIUS. 

The  Life  of  Grotius  shows  the  singular  felicity  of  a  man 
of  letters  and  a  statesman  ;  and  how  a  student  can  pass  his 
hours  in  the  closest  imprisonment.  The  gate  of  the  prison 
has  sometimes  been  the  porch  of  fame. 

Grotius,  studious  from  his  infancy,  had  aha  received  from 
Nature  the  faculty  of  genius,  and  was  so  fortunate  as  to  find 
in  his  fother  a  tutor  who  had  formed  his  early  taste  and  his 
moral  feelings.  The  younger  Grotius,  in  imitation  of  Horace, 
has  celebrated  his  jTratitude  in  verse. 


19G  GROTIUS. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  circumstances  in  the  Hfe  of  this 
great  man,  which  strongly  marks  his  genius  and  fortitude,  is 
displayed  in  the  manner  in  which  he  employed  his  time 
during  his  imprisonment.  Other  men,  condemned  to  exile 
and  captivity,  if  they  survive,  despair;  the  man  of  letters 
may  reckon  those  days  as  the  sweetest  of  his  life. 

When  a  prisoner  at  the  Hague,  he  laboured  on  a  Latin 
essay  on  the  means  of  terminating  religious  disputes,  Avhich 
occasion  so  many  infelicities  in  the  state,  in  the  church,  and 
in  families ;  when  he  was  carried  to  Louvenstein,  he  resumed 
his  law  studies,  which  other  employments  had  interrupted. 
He  gave  a  portion  of  his  time  to  moral  philosophy,  which 
engaged  him  to  translate  the  maxims  of  the  ancient  poets, 
collected  by  Stobaeus,  and  the  fragments  of  Menander  and 
Philemon. 

Every  Sunday  was  devoted  to  the  Scriptures,  and  to  his 
Commentaries  on  the  New  Testament.  In  the  course  of  the 
work  he  fell  ill ;  but  as  soon  as  he  recovered  his  health,  he 
composed  his  treatise,  in  Dutch  verse,  on  the  Truth  of  the 
Christian  Rehgion.  Sacred  and  profane  authors  occupied 
him  alternately.  His  only  mode  of  refreshing  his  mind  was 
to  pass  from  one  work  to  another.  He  sent  to  Vossius  his 
observations  on  the  Tragedies  of  Seneca.  He  wrote  several 
other  works  ;  particularly  a  little  Catechism,  in  verse,  for  his 
daughter  Cornelia ;  and  collected  materials  to  form  his 
Apology.  Add  to  these  various  labours  an  extensive  cor- 
respondence he  held  with  the  learned ;  and  his  letters  were 
often  so  many  treatises  ;  there  is  a  printed  collection  amount- 
ing to  two  thousand.  Grotius  had  notes  ready  for  every 
classical  author  of  antiquity,  whenever  they  prepared  a  new 
edition ;  an  account  of  his  plans  and  his  performances  might 
furnish  a  volume  of  themselves  ;  yet  he  never  published  in 
haste,  and  was  fond  of  revising  them.  We  must  recollect, 
notwithstanding  such  uninterrupted  literary  avocations,  his 
hours  were  frequently  devoted  to  the  public  functions  of  an 
ambassador :  "  I  only  reserve  for  my  studies  the  time  wliich 


NOBLEMEN  TURNED   CRITICS.  197 

other  ministers  give  to  their  pleasures,  to  conversations  often 
useless,  and  to  visits  sometimes  unnecessary ;  "  such  is  the 
language  of  this  great  man !  Although  he  produced  thus 
abundantly,  his  confinement  was  not  more  than  two  years. 
We  may  Avell  exclaim  here,  that  the  mind  of  Grotius  had 
never  been  imprisoned. 

I  have  seen  this  great  student  censured  for  neglecting  liis 
ollicial  duties ;  but,  to  decide  on  this  accusation,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  know  the  character  of  his  accuser. 


NOBLEMEN  TURNED  CRITICS. 

I  OFFER  to  the  contemplation  of  those  unfortunate  mortals 
who  are  necessitated  to  undergo  the  criticisms  of  lords,  this 
pair  of  anecdotes  : — 

Soderini,  the  Gonfaloniere  of  Florence,  having  had  a 
statue  made  by  the  great  Michael  Angela,  when  it  was 
finished,  came  to  inspect  it ;  and  having  for  some  time  saga- 
ciously considered  it,  poring  now  on  the  face,  then  on  the 
arms,  the  knees,  the  form  of  the  leg,  and  at  length  on  the 
foot  itself;  the  statue  being  of  such  perfect  beauty,  he  found 
himself  at  a  loss  to  display  his  powers  of  criticism,  only  by 
lavishing  his  praise.  But  only  to  praise  might  appear  as  if 
there  had  been  an  obtuseness  in  the  keenness  of  his  criticism. 
He  trembled  to  find  a  fault,  but  a  fault  must  be  found.  At 
length  he  ventured  to  mutter  something  concerning  the  nose ; 
it  might,  he  thought,  be  something  more  Grecian.  Angela 
differed  from  his  grace,  but  he  said  he  would  attempt  to 
gratify  his  taste.  He  took  up  liis  chisel,  and  concealed  some 
marble  dust  in  his  hand ;  feigning  to  re-touch  the  part,  he 
Rdroitly  let  fall  some  of  the  dust  he  held  concealed.  The 
cardinal  observing  it  as  it  fell,  transported  at  the  idea  of  his 
critical  acumen,  exclaimed — "Ah,  Angela!  you  have  now 
given  an  inimitable  grace  !  " 


198  LITERARY   IMPOSTURES. 

When  Pope  was  first  introduced  to  read  liis  Iliad  to  Lord 
Halifax,  the  noble  critic  did  not  venture  to  be  dissati>fied 
with  so  perfect  a  coin[)osition  ;  but,  like  the  cardinal,  this 
passage,  and  that  word,  this  turn,  and  that  expression,  formed 
the  broken  cant  of  liis  criticisms.  The  honest  poet  was  stung 
with  vexation  ;  for,  in  general,  the  parts  at  which  his  loi'd- 
ship  hesitated  were  those  with  which  he  was  most  satisiied. 
As  he  returned  home  with  Sir  Samuel  Garth,  he  revealed  to 
him  the  anxiety  of  his  mind.  "  Oh,"  replied  Garth  laughing, 
"you  are  not  so  well  acquainted  with  his  lordship  as  myself; 
he  must  criticize.  At  your  next  visit,  read  to  him  those  very 
passages  as  they  now  stand ;  tell  him  that  you  have  recol- 
lected his  criticisms ;  and  I'll  warrant  you  of  his  approbation 
of  them.  This  is  what  I  have  done  a  hundred  times  myself. 
Pope  made  use  of  this  stratagem ;  it  took,  like  the  marble 
dust  of  Angela  ;  and  my  lord,  like  the  cardinal,  exclaimed — 
"  Dear  Pope,  they  are  now  inimitable." 


LITERARY  IMPOSTURES. 

Some  authors  have  practised  singular  impositions  on  the 
public.  Varillas,  the  French  historian,  enjoyed  for  some 
time  a  great  reputation  in  his  own  country  for  his  historical 
compositions,  but  when  they  became  more  known,  the  schol 
ars  of  other  countries  destroyed  the  reputation  which  he  had 
unjustly  acquired.  His  continual  professions  of  sincerity 
prejudiced  many  in  his  favour,  and  made  him  pass  for  a 
writer  who  had  penetrated  into  the  inmost  recesses  of  ilie 
cabinet :  but  the  public  were  at  length  undeceived,  and  were 
convinced  that  the  historical  anecdotes  which  Varillas  put  off 
for  authentic  facts  had  no  foundation,  being  wholly  his  own 
inventions : — though  he  endeavoured  to  make  them  pass  for 
realities  by  affected  citations  of  titles,  instructions,  letters, 
memoirs,  and    relations,  all   of  them    imaginary !     He   had 


LITERARY  IMPOSTURES.  I-JQ 

read  almost  every  thing  historical,  printed  and  manu- 
script ;  hut  his  fertile  political  imagination  gave  his  con- 
jectures as  facts,  while  he  quoted  at  random  his  pretended 
authorities.  Burnet's  book  against  Varillas  is  a  curious  little 
volume. 

Gemelli  Carreri,  a  Neapolitan  gentleman,  for  many  years 
never  quitted  his  chamber;  confined  by  a  tedious  indisposi- 
tion, he  amused  himself  with  writing  a  Voyage  round  the 
World ;  giving  characters  of  men,  and  descriptions  of  coun- 
tries, as  if  he  had  really  visited  them  :  and  his  volumes  are 
Mtill  very  interesting.  I  preserve  this  anecdote  as  it  has  long 
come  down  to  us ;  but  Carreri,  it  has  been  recently  ascer- 
tained, met  the  fate  of  Bruce ;  for  he  had  visited  the  places 
he  has  described ;  Humboldt  and  Clavigero  have  confirmed 
his  local  knowledge  of  Mexico,  and  of  China,  and  found  his 
book  useful  and  veracious.  Du  liable,  who  has  written  so 
voluminous  an  account  of  China,  compiled  it  from  the  JNIe- 
moirs  of  the  Missionaries,  and  never  travelled  ten  leagues 
from  Paris  in  his  life  ;  though  he  appears,  by  his  writings,  to 
be  famihar  with  Chinese  scenery. 

Bamberger's  Travels  some  years  ago  made  a  great  sensa- 
tion— and  the  public  were  duped  ;  they  proved  to  be  the 
ideal  voyages  of  a  member  of  the  German  Grub-street,  about 
his  own  garret.  Too  many  of  our  "Travels"  have  been 
maimfactured  to  fill  a  certain  size ;  and  some  which  bear 
names  of  great  authority  were  not  written  by  the  professed 
authors. 

There  is  an  excellent  observation  of  an  anonymous  author : 
— "  Writers  who  never  visited  foreign  countries,  and  travellers 
who  have  run  through  immense  regions  with  fleeting  pace, 
have  given  us  long  accounts  of  various  countries  and  people ; 
evidently  collected  from  the  idle  reports  and  absurd  traditions 
of  the  ignorant  vulgar,  from  whom  only  they  could  have 
received  those  relations  which  we  see  accumulated  witli  such 
undiscerning  credulity." 

Some  authors  have  practised  the  singidar  imposition   of 


200  LITERARY  IMPOSTURES. 

announcing  a  variety  of  titles   of  works  preparing  for  tlie 
press,  but  of  wliicli  nothing  but  the  titles  were  ever  written. 

Paschal,  historiographer  of  Fi'ance,  had  a  reason  for  these 
ingenious  inventions ;  he  continually  announced  such  titles, 
that  his  pension  for  writing  on  the  history  of  France  might 
not  be  stopped.  When  he  died,  his  historical  labours  did  not 
exceed  six  pages ! 

Gregorio  Leti  is  an  historian  of  much  the  same  stamp  as 
Varillas.  He  wrote  with  great  facility,  and  hunger  generally 
quickened  his  pen.  He  took  every  thing  too  lightly  ;  yet  hi3 
works  are  sometimes  looked  into  for  many  anecdotes  of  Eng- 
lish history  not  to  be  found  elsewhere  ;  and  perhaps  ought 
not  to  have  been  there  if  truth  had  been  consulted.  His 
great  aim  was  always  to  make  a  book :  he  swells  his  volumes 
with  digressions,  intersperses  many  ridiculous  stories,  and 
applies  all  the  repartees  he  collected  from  old  novel-writers 
to  modern  characters. 

Such  forgeries  abound  ;  the  numerous  "  Testaments  Poli- 
tiques  "  of  Colbert,  Mazarin,  and  other  great  ministers,  were 
forgeries  usually  from  the  Dutch  press,  as  are  many  pre- 
tended political  "  Memoirs." 

Of  our  old  translations  from  the  Greek  and  Latin  authors, 
many  were  taken  from  French  versions. 

The  Travels,  written  in  Hebrew,  of  Rabbi  Benjamin  of 
Tudela,  of  which  we  have  a  curious  translation,  are,  I  believe, 
apocryphal.  He  describes  a  journey,  which,  if  ever  he  took, 
it  must  have  been  with  his  night-cap  on  ;  being  a  perfect 
dream !  It  is  said  that  to  inspirit  and  give  importance  to  his 
nation,  he  pretended  that  he  had  travelled  to  all  the  syna- 
gogues in  the  East ;  he  mentions  places  which  he  does  not 
appear  ever  to  have  seen,  and  the  different  people  he  describes 
no  one  has  known.  He  calculates  that  he  has  found  near 
eight  hundred  thousand  Jews,  of  which  about  half  are  inde- 
pendent, and  not  subjects  of  any  Christian  or  Gentile  sover- 
eign. These  fictitious  travels  have  been  a  source  of  much 
trouble  to   the   learned  ;  particularly  to  those  who   in  their 


LITERARY  IMPOSTURES.  201 

«eal  to  authenticate  them  followed  the  aerial  footsteps  of  the 
HyppogrifFe  of  Rabbi  Benjamin.  He  affirms  that  the  tomb 
of  Ezekiel,  with  the  library  of  the  first  and  second  temples, 
were  to  be  seen  in  his  time  at  a  place  on  the  banks  of  the 
river  Euphrates ;  Wesselius  of  Groningen,  and  many  otlier 
literati,  ti-avelled  on  purpose  to  JNIesopotamia,  to  reach  the 
tomb  and  examine  the  library ;  but  the  fairy  treasures  were 
never  to  be  seen,  nor  even  heard  of! 

The  first  on  tlie  list  of  impudent  impostors  is  Annius  of 
Viterbo,  a  Dominican,  and  master  of  the  sacred  palace  under 
Alexander  VI.  He  pretended  he  had  discovered  the  entire 
works  of  Sanchoniatho,  Manetho,  Berosus,  and  others,  of 
whicli  only  fragments  are  remaining.  He  published  seven- 
teen books  of  antiquities !  But  not  having  any  MSS.  to 
produce,  though  he  declared  he  had  found  them  buried  in 
the  earth,  these  hterary  fabrications  occasioned  great  contro- 
versies ;  for  the  author  died  before  he  made  up  his  mind  to 
a  confession.  At  their  first  publication  universal  joy  was 
diffused  among  the  learned.  Suspicion  soon  rose,  and  detec- 
tion followed.  However,  as  the  forger  never  would  acknowl- 
edge himself  as  such,  it  has  been  ingeniously  conjectured 
that  he  himself  was  imposed  on,  rather  tlian  that  he  was  the 
impostor ;  or,  as  in  the  case  of  Chatterton,  possibly  all  may 
not  be  fictitious.  It  has  been  said  that  a  great  volume  in 
MS.,  anterior  by  two  hundred  years  to  the  seventeen  books 
of  Annius,  exists  in  the  Bibliotheque  Colbertine,  in  whicli 
these  pretended  histories  were  to  be  read  ;  but  as  Annius  would 
never  point  out  the  sources  of  his,  the  whole  may  be  consid- 
ered as  a  very  wonderful  imposture.  I  refer  the  reader  to 
Tyrwliitt's  Vindication  of  his  Appendix  to  Rowley's  or  Chat- 
terton's  Poems,  p.  140,  for  some  curious  observations,  and 
Bome  facts  of  literary  imposture. 

An  extraordinary  literary  imposture  was  that  of  one  Josepli 
Vella,  who,  in  1794,  was  an  adventurer  in  Sicily,  and  pre- 
\ended  that  he  possessed  seventeen  of  the  lost  books  of  Livy 
in  Arabic :  he  had   i-eceived   tliis   literary  treasure,  he  said, 


202  LITERARY  IMPOSTURES. 

from  a  Frenchman,  wlio  had  purloined  it  from  a  shelf  in 
St.  Soi)hia's  church  at  Constantinople.  As  many  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  classics  liave  been  translated  by  the 
Arabians,  and  many  were  first  known  in  Europe  in  their 
Arabic  dress,  there  was  nothing  improbable  in  one  part  of 
his  story.  He  was  urged  to  publish  tliese  long-desired  books ; 
and  Lady  Spencer,  then  in  Italy,  offered  to  defray  the  ex- 
pens(;s.  He  had  the  efiVontery,  by  way  of  specimen,  to  edit 
an  Italian  translation  of  the  sixtieth  book,  but  that  book  took 
up  no  more  than  one  octavo  page  !  A  professor  of  Oriental 
literature  in  Prussia  introduced  it  in  his  work,  never  suspect- 
ing the  fraud ;  it  proved  to  be  nothing  more  than  the  epitome 
of  Floras.  He  also  gave  out  that  he  possessed  a  code  wliich 
he  had  picked  up  in  the  abbey  of  St.  Martin,  containing  tlie 
ancient  history  of  Sicily  in  the  Arabic  period,  comprehending 
above  two  hundred  years ;  and  of  which  ages  their  own  his- 
torians were  entirely  deficient  in  knowledge.  Vella  declared 
he  had  a  genuine  official  correspondence  between  the  Arabian 
governors  of  Sicily  and  their  superiors  in  Africa,  from  the 
first  landing  of  the  Arabians  in  that  island.  Vella  was  now 
loaded  with  honours  and  pensions !  It  is  true  he  showed 
Arabic  ]MSS.,  which,  however,  did  not  contain  a  syllable  of 
what  he  said.  He  pretended  lie  was  in  continual  correspond- 
ence with  friends  at  Morocco  and  elsewhere.  The  King  of 
Naples  furnished  him  with  money  to  assist  his  researches. 
Four  volumes  in  quarto  were  at  length  published !  Vella 
had  the  adroitness  to  change  the  Arabic  MSS.  he  possessed, 
which  entirely  related  to  Mahomet,  to  matters  relative  to 
Sicily ;  he  bestowed  several  weeks'  labour  to  disfigure  the 
whole,  altering  page  for  page,  line  for  line,  and  word  for 
word,  but  interspersed  numberless  dots,  strokes,  and  flour- 
ishes ;  so  that  when  he  pul)lished  a  fac-siraile,  every  one 
admired  the  learning  of  Vella,  who  could  translate  what  no 
one  else  could  read.  He  complained  he  had  lost  an  eye  in 
this  minute  labour ;  and  every  one  thought  his  pension  ought 
to  have  been  increased.     P2very  thing  prospered  about  him. 


LITERARY  IMrOSTURKS.  203 

except  his  eye,  which  some  thought  was  not  so  liad  neither 
It  was  at  length  discovered  by  his  bhniders,  &c.  that  tiie 
whole  was  a  Ibrgery :  though  it  had  now  been  patronized, 
translated,  and  extracted  through  Europe.  When  this  MS. 
was  examined  by  an  OrientaUst,  it  was  discovered  to  be 
nothing  but  a  history  of  Mahomet  and  his  ftimily.  Yella 
was  condemned  to  imprisonment. 

The  Spanish  antiquary,  Medina  Conde,  in  order  to  favour 
the  pretensions  of  the  church  in  a  great  lawsuit,  forged  deeds 
and  inscriptions,  which  he  buried  in  the  ground,  where  he 
knew  they  would  sliortly  be  dug  up.  Upon  their  being 
found,  he  published  engravings  of  them,  and  gave  explana- 
tions of  their  unknown  characters,  making  them  out  to  be  so 
many  authentic  proofs  and  evidences  of  the  contested  assump- 
tions of  tiie  clergy. 

The  Morocco  ambassador  purchased  of  him  a  copper  brace- 
let of  Fatima,  which  Medina  proved  by  the  Arabic  inscription 
and  many  certificates  to  be  genuine,  and  found  among  the 
ruins  of  the  Alliambra,  with  other  treasures  of  its  last  king, 
who  had  hid  them  there  in  hope  of  better  days.  This  famous 
bracelet  turned  out  afterwards  to  be  the  work  of  Medina's 
own  hand,  made  out  of  an  old  brass  candlestick ! 

George  Psalmanazar,  to  whose  labours  we  owe  much  of 
the  great  Universal  History,  exceeded  in  powers  of  decep- 
tion any  of  the  great  impostors  of  learning.  His  Island  of 
Formosa  was  an  illusion  eminently  bold,  and  maintained  with 
as  much  felicity  as  erudition  ;  and  great  must  have  been  that 
erudition  which  could  form  a  pretended  language  and  its 
grammar,  and  fertile  the  genius  which  could  invent  the  his- 
tory of  an  unknown  people :  it  is  said  that  the  deception  was 
only  satisfactorily  ascertained  by  his  own  penitential  confes- 
sion ;  he  had  defied  and  baffled  the  most  learned.  The 
literary  impostor  Lauder  had  much  more  audacity  than 
ingenuity,  and  he  died  contemned  by  all  the  world.  Ireland's 
"Shakspeare"  served  to  show  that  commentators  are  not 
blessed,    necessarily,    with    an    interior   and    unerring    tacU 


204  LITERARY  BIPOSTURES. 

Genius  and  learning  are  ill  directed  in  forming  literary 
impositions,  but  at  least  they  must  be  distinguished  from  the 
fabrications  of  ordinary  impostors. 

A  singular  forgery  was  practised  on  Captain  Wilford  by  a 
learned  Hindu,  who,  to  ingratiate  himself  and  his  studies 
with  the  too  zealous  and  pious  European,  contrived,  among 
other  attempts,  to  give  the  history  of  Noah  and  his  three 
sons,  in  his  "Purana,"  under  the  designation  of  Satyavrata. 
Captain  Wilford  having  read  the  passage,  transcribed  it  for 
Sir  William  Jones,  who  translated  it  as  a  curious  extract ; 
the  wliole  was  an  interpolation  by  the  dexterous  introduction 
of  a  forged  sheet,  discoloured  and  prepared  for  the  purpose 
of  deception,  and  which,  having  served  his  purpose  for  the 
moment,  was  afterwards  withdrawn.  As  books  in  India  are 
not  bound,  it  is  not  ditiicult  to  introduce  loose  leaves.  To 
confirm  his  various  impositions,  this  learned  forger  had  the 
patience  to  write  two  voluminous  sections,  in  which  he  con- 
nected all  the  legends  together  in  the  style  of  the  Puranas, 
consisting  of  12,000  lines.  When  Captain  Wilford  resolved 
to  collate  the  manusci'ipt  with  others,  the  learned  Hindu 
began  to  disfigure  his  own  manuscript,  the  captain's,  and 
those  of  the  college,  by  erasing  the  name  of  the  country  and 
substituting  that  of  Egypt.  With  as  much  pains,  and  with  a 
more  honourable  direction,  our  Hindu  Lauder  might  have 
immortalized  his  invention. 

We  have  authors  who  sold  their  names  to  be  prefixed  to 
works  they  never  read ;  or,  on  the  contrary,  have  prefixed 
the  names  of  others  to  their  own  writings.  Sir  John  Hill, 
once  when  he  fell  sick,  owned  to  a  friend  that  he  had  over- 
fatigued  himself  with  writing  seven  works  at  once  !  one  of 
which  was  on  architecture,  and  another  on  cookery !  This 
hero  once  contracted  to  translate  Swammerdam's  work  on 
insects  for  fifty  guineas.  After  the  agreement  with  the  book- 
seller, he  recollected  that  he  did  not  understand  a  word  of 
the  Dutch  language  !  Nor  did  there  exist  a  French  transla- 
tion !     The  work,  however,  was  not  the  less  done  for  this 


CARDINAL  RICHELIEU.  205 

small  obstacle.  Sir  John  bargained  with  anotlier  translator 
for  twenty-five  guineas.  The  second  translator  was  precisely 
in  the  same  situation  as  the  first ;  as  ignorant,  though  not  so 
well  paid  as  the  knight.  He  rebargained  with  a  third,  who 
perfectly  understood  his  original,  for  twelve  guineas !  So 
that  the  translators  who  could  not  translate  feasted  on  venison 
and  turtle,  while  the  modest  drudge,  whose  name  never 
appeared  to  the  world,  broke  in  patience  his  daily  bread ! 
The  craft  of  authorship  has  many  mysteries.  One  of  the 
great  patriarchs  and  primeval  dealers  in  English  literature 
was  Robert  Green,  one  of  the  most  facetious,  profligate,  and 
indefatigable  of  the  Scribleri  family.  He  laid  the  foundation 
of  a  new  dynasty  of  literary  emperors.  The  first  act  by 
which  he  proved  his  claim  to  the  throne  of  Grub-street  has 
served  as  a  model  to  his  numerous  successors — it  was  an 
ambidextrous  trick  !  Green  sold  his  "  Orlando  Furioso  "  to 
two  different  theatres,  and  is  among  the  first  authors  in  Eng- 
lish literary  history  who  wrote  as  a  trader ;  or  as  crabbed 
Anthony  Wood  phrases  it,  in  the  language  of  celibacy  and 
cynicism,  "  he  wrote  to  maintain  his  wife,  and  that  high  and 
loose  course  of  living  which  foets  generally  follow."  With 
a  drop  still  sweeter,  old  Anthony  describes  Gayton,  another 
worthy ;  "  he  came  up  to  London  to  live  in  a  skirling  condi- 
tion, and  wrote  trite  things  merely  to  get  bread  to  sustain 
him  and  his  wife"  The  hermit  Anthony  seems  to  have  had 
a  mortal  antipathy  against  the  Eves  of  Hterary  men. 


CARDINAL   RICHELIEU. 

The  present  anecdote  concerning  Cardinal  Richelieu  may 
serve  to  teach  the  man  of  letters  how  he  deals  out  criticisms 
to  the  great,  when  they  ask  his  opinion  of  manuscripts, 
be  they  in  verse  or  prose. 

The  cardinal  placed  in  a  gallery  of  his  palace  the  portraits 


206  CARDINAL  RICITELIEU. 

of  several  illustrious  men,  and  was  desirous  of  comjiosing  the 
inscriptions  under  the  portraits.  The  one  which  he  intended 
for  Montluc,  the  marechal  of  France,  was  conceived  in  these 
terms :  Malta  fecit,  plura  scripsit,  vir  (amen  magnus  fuit. 
He  shovved  it  without  mentioning  the  authoi"  to  Bourbon,  the 
royal  Greek  professor,  and  asked  his  opinion  concerning  it. 
The  critic  considered  that  the  Latin  was  much  in  the  style 
of  the  breviary ;  and,  had  it  concluded  with  an  alleliijah,  it 
would  serve  for  an  anthem  to  the  magnijicat.  The  cardinal 
agreed  with  the  severity  of  his  strictures,  and  even  acknoAvl- 
edged  the  discernment  of  the  professor  ;  "  for,"  he  said,  "  it  is 
really  written  by  a  priest."  But  however  he  might  approve 
of  Boui'bon's  critical  powers,  he  punished  without  mercy  his 
ingenuity.  The  pension  his  majesty  had  bestowed  on  him 
was  withheld  the  next  year. 

The  cardinal  was  one  of  those  ambitious  men  who  foolishly 
attempt  to  rival  every  kind  of  genius ;  and  seeing  himself 
constantly  disappointed,  he  envied,  with  all  the  venom  of 
rancour,  those  talents  which  are  so  frequently  the  all  that 
men  of  genius  possess. 

He  Avas  jealous  of  Balzac's  splendid  reputation ;  and 
offered  the  elder  Heinsius  ten  thousand  crowns  to  write  a 
criticism  which  should  ridicule  his  elaborate  compositions. 
This  Heinsius  refused,  because  Salmasius  threatened  to 
revenge  Balzac  on  his  Herodes  Infanticida. 

He  attempted  to  rival  the  reputation  of  Corneille's  "  Cid," 
by  opposing  to  it  one  of  the  most  ridiculous  dramatic  produc- 
tions ;  it  was  the  allegorical  tragedy  called  "  Europe,"  in  which 
the  minister  had  congregated  the  four  quarters  of  the  world ! 
Much  political  matter  was  thrown  together,  divided  into 
scenes  and  acts.  There  are  appended  to  it  keys  of  the  dra- 
matis personoe  and  of  the  allegories.  In  this  tragedy  Fran- 
cion  represents  France  ;  Ibere,  Spain  ;  Parthenope,  Naples, 
&c. ;  and  these  have  their  attendants : — Lilian  (alluding  to 
the  French  lilies)  is  the  servant  of  Francion,  Avhile  llisjiale 
is  the  confident  of  Ibere.     But  the  key  to  the  allegories  is 


CARDINAL   RICHELIEU.  207 

much  more  copious  : — Albione  signifies  England ;  three  knots 
of  t/te  hair  of  Aiistrasie  mean  the  towns  of  Clermont,  Stenay, 
and  Jamet,  these  places  once  belonging  to  Lorraine.  A  box 
of  diamonds  of  Austrasie  is  the  town  of  Nancy,  belonging 
once  to  the  dukes  of  Lorraine.  The  key  of  Ibere's  great 
porch  is  Perpignan,  which  France  took  from  Spain ;  and 
m  this  manner  is  this  sublime  tragedy  composed !  AVhon  he 
first  sent  it  anonymously  to  the  French  Academy  it  was  rep- 
robated. He  then  tore  it  in  a  rage,  and  scattered  it  about 
his  study.  Towards  evening,  like  another  Medea  lamenting 
over  the  members  of  her  own  children,  he  and  his  secretary 
passed  the  night  in  uniting  the  scattered  limbs.  He  then 
ventured  to  avow  himself;  and  having  pretended  to  correct 
this  incorrigible  tragedy,  the  submissive  Academy  retracted 
their  censures,  but  the  public  pronounced  its  melancholy  fate 
on  its  first  representation.  This  lamentable  tragedy  was 
mtended  to  thwart  Corneille's  "  Cid."  Enraged  at  its  success, 
Richelieu  even  commanded  the  Academy  to  publish  a  severe 
antique  of  it,  well  known  in  French  literature.  Boileau  on 
this  occasion  has  these  two  well-turned  verses : — 

"  En  vain  contre  le  Cid,  un  ministre  se  ligue; 
Tout  Paris,  pour  Chimtne,  a  les  yeux  de  Rodrigue." 

"  To  oppose  the  Cid,  in  vain  the  statesman  tries; 
AH  Paris,  for  Oiimene,  has  Roderick's  ej'es." 

It  is  said  that,  in  consequence  of  the  fall  of  this  tragedy, 
the  French  custom  is  derived  of  securing  a  number  of 
friends  to  applaud  their  pieces  at  their  first  representations. 
I  find  the  following  droll  anecdote  concerning  this  droll  tragedy 
in  Beauchamp's  Recherches  sur  le  Theatre. 

The  minister,  after  the  ill  success  of  his  tragedy,  retired 
unaccom])anied  the  same  evening  to  his  country-house,  at 
Ruel.  He  then  sent  for  his  favourite  Desmaret,  who  was  at 
Bupper  with  his  friend  Petit.  Desmaret,  conjecturing  that  the 
interview  would  be  stormy,  begged  his  friend  to  accompany 
him. 


208  CARDINAL   RICHELIEU. 

"  AVell !  "  said  the  Cai'dinal,  as  soon  as  he  saw  them,  ''  the 
French  will  nevex'  possess  a  taste  for  what  is  lofty :  they 
seem  not  to  have  relished  my  tragedy." — "  My  lord,"  an- 
swered Petit,  "  it  is  not  the  fault  of  the  piece,  which  is  so 
admirable,  but  that  of  the  players.  Did  not  your  eminence 
perceive  that  not  only  they  knew  not  their  parts,  but  that 
they  were  all  drunk  ?  " — "  Really,"  replied  the  Cardinal, 
something  pleased,  "  I  observed  they  acted  it  dreadfully  ill." 

Desmaret  and  Petit  returned  to  Paris,  flew  directly  to  the 
players  to  plan  a  new  mode  of  performance,  which  was  to 
secure  a  number  of  spectators  ;  so  that  at  the  second  represen- 
tation bursts  of  applause  were  frequently  heard  ! 

Richelieu  had  another  singular  vanity,  of  closely  imitating 
Cardinal  Ximenes.  Pliny  was  not  a  more  servile  imitator 
of  Cicero.  Marville  tells  us  that,  like  Ximenes,  he  placed 
himself  at  the  head  of  an  army ;  like  him,  he  degraded  prin- 
ces and  nobles  ;  and  like  him,  rendered  himself  formidable  to 
all  Europe.  And  because  Ximenes  had  established  schools 
of  theology,  Richelieu  undertook  Hkewise  to  raise  into  notice 
the  schools  of  the  Sorbonne.  And,  to  conclude,  as  Ximenes 
had  written  several  theological  treatises,  our  cardinal  was 
also  desirous  of  leaving  posterity  various  polemical  works. 
But  his  gallantries  rendered  him  more  ridiculous.  Always 
in  ill  health,  this  miserable  lover  and  grave  cardinal  would, 
in  a  freak  of  love,  dress  himself  w  ith  a  red  feather  in  his 
cap  and  sword  by  his  side.  He  was  more  hurt  by  an  offen- 
sive nickname  given  him  by  the  queen  of  Louis  XIII.,  than 
ev(in  by  the  hiss  of  theatres  and  the  critical  condemnation  of 
academies. 

Cardinal  Richelieu  was  assuredly  a  great  political  genius. 
Sir  William  Temple  observes,  that  he  instituted  the  French 
Academy  to  give  employment  to  the  ivi'ts,  and  to  hinder  them 
from  inspecting  too  narrowly  his  politics  and  his  administra- 
tion. It  is  believed  that  the  Marshal  de  Grararaont  lost  an 
important  battle  by  the  orders  of  the  cardinal ;  that  in 
this   critical   conjuncture    of   affairs    his   majesty,  who   was 


ARISTOTLE   AND    PLATO.  209 

inclined  to  dismiss  him,  could  not  then  absolutely  do  without 
him. 

Vanity  in  this  cardinal  levelled  a.  great  genius.  He  who 
would  attempt  to  display  universal  excellence  will  be  im- 
pelled to  practice  meannesses,  and  to  act  follies  which,  if  he 
has  the  least  sensibility,  must  occasion  him  many  a  pang  and 
many  a  blush. 


ARISTOTLE  AND  PLATO 

No  philosopher  has  been  so  much  praised  and  censured  as 
Aristotle  :  but  he  had  this  advantage,  of  which  some  of  the 
most  eminent  scholars  have  been  deprived,  that  he  enjoyed 
during  his  life  a  splendid  reputation.  Philip  of  Macedon 
must  have  felt  a  strong  conviction  of  his  merit  when  he 
wrote  to  him,  on  the  birth  of  Alexander : — "  I  receive  from 
the  gods  this  day  a  son  ;  but  I  thank  them  not  so  much  for 
the  favour  of  his  birth,  as  his  having  come  into  the  world  at 
a  time  when  you  can  have  the  care  of  his  education  ;  and 
that  through  you  he  will  be  rendered  worthy  of  being  my 
son." 

Diogenes  Laertius  describes  the  person  of  the  Stagyrite. — 
His  eyes  were  small,  his  voice  hoarse,  and  his  legs  lank.  He 
stammered,  was  fond  of  a  magnificent  dress,  and  wore  costly 
rings.  He  had  a  mistress  whom  he  loved  passionately,  and 
for  whom  he  frequently  acted  inconsistently  with  the  philo- 
ecphic  character ;  a  thing  as  common  with  philosophers  as 
with  other  men.  Aristotle  had  nothing  of  the  austerity  of 
the  philosopher,  though  his  works  are  so  austere :  he  was 
open,  pleasant,  and  even  charming  in  his  conversation  ;  fiery 
and  volatile  in  his  pleasures  ;  magnificent  in  his  dress.  He 
is  described  as  fierce,  disdainful,  and  sarcastic.  He  joined  to 
a  taste  for  profound  erudition,  that  of  an  elegant  dissipation. 
His  passion  for  luxury  occasioned  him  such  expenses  when 
he  was  young,  that  he  consumed  all  his  property.     Laertius 

VOL.   I  14 


210  ARISTOTLE  AND   PLATO. 

has  preserved  the  will  of  Aristotle,  which  is  curious.  The 
chief  part  turns  on  the  future  welfare  and  marriage  of  hia 
daughter.  "  If,  after  my  death,  she  chooses  to  marry,  the 
executors  will  be  careful  she  marries  no  person  of  an  inferior 
rank.  If  she  resides  at  Chalcis,  she  shall  occupy  the  apait- 
ment  contiguous  to  the  garden  ;  if  she  chooses  Stagyra,  she 
shall  reside  in  the  house  of  my  father,  and  my  executors 
shall  furnish  either  of  those  places  she  fixes  on." 

Ai'istotle  had  studied  under  the  divine  Plato  ;  but  the  dis- 
ciple and  the  master  could  not  possibly  agree  in  their  doc- 
trines :  they  were  of  opposite  tastes  and  talents.  Plato  was 
the  chief  of  the  academic  sect,  and  Aristotle  of  the  peripatetic. 
Plato  was  simple,  modest,  frugal,  and  of  austere  manners  ;  a 
good  friend  and  a  zealous  citizen,  but  a  theoretical  politician  : 
a  lover  indeed  of  benevolence,  and  desirous  of  diffusing  it 
amongst  men,  but  knowing  little  of  them  as  we  find  them 
his  "  Republic "  is  as  chimerical  as  Rousseau's  ideas,  or  Sir 
Thomas  More's  Utopia. 

Rapin,  the  critic,  has  sketched  an  ingenious  parallel  of 
these  two  celebrated  philosophers : — 

"  The  genius  of  Plato  is  more  polished,  and  that  of  Aristotle 
more  vast  and  profound.  Plato  has  a  lively  and  teeming 
imagination ;  fertile  in  invention,  in  ideas,  in  expressions, 
and  in  figui'es  ;  displaying  a  thousand  turns,  a  thousand  new 
colours,  all  agi'eeable  to  their  subject;  but  after  all  it  is 
nothing  more  than  imagination.  Aristotle  is  hard  and  dry 
in  all  he  says,  but  what  he  says  is  all  reason,  though  it  is 
expressed  drily :  his  diction,  pure  as  it  is,  has  something 
uncommonly  austere ;  and  his  obscurities,  natui-al  or  affected, 
disgust  and  fatigue  his  readers.  Plato  is  equally  delicate  in 
his  thoughts  and  in  his  expressions.  Aristotle,  though  he 
may  be  more  natural,  has  not  any  dehcacy  ;  his  style  is 
simple  and  equal,  but  close  and  nervous  ;  that  of  Plato  is 
grand  and  elevated,  but  loose  and  diffuse.  Plato  always 
says  more  than  he  should  say  :  Aristotle  never  says  enough, 
and  leaves  the  reader  always  to  think  more  than  he  says 


ARISTOTLE   AND   PLATO.  211 

llie  one  suq)rises  the  mind,  and  channs  it  by  a  flowery  and 
sparkling  character  :  the  other  illuminates  and  instructs  it  by 
a  just  and  solid  method.  Plato  comnuaiicates  something  of 
genius,  by  the  fecundity  of  his  own  ;  and  Aristotle  something 
of  judgment  and  reason,  by  that  impression  of  good  sense 
which  ai)pears  in  all  he  says.  In  a  woi'd,  Plato  frequently 
only  thinks  to  express  himself  well  :  and  Aristotle  only  thinks 
to  think  justly." 

An  interesting  anecdote  is  related  of  these  philosophers. — 
Aristotle  became  the  rival  of  Plato.  Literary  disputes  long 
subsisted  betwixt  them.  The  disciple  ridiculed  his  master, 
and  the  master  treated  contemptuously  his  disciple.  To 
make  his  sujieriority  manifest,  Aristotle  wished  for  a  regular 
disputation  before  an  audience,  where  erudition  and  reason 
might  prevail ;    but  this  satisfaction  was  denied. 

Plato  was  always  surrounded  by  his  scholars,  who  took  a 
lively  interest  in  his  glory.  Three  of  these  he  taught  to  rival 
Aristotle,  and  it  became  their  mutual  interest  to  depreciate 
his  merits.  Unfortunately  one  day  Plato  found  liimself  in 
his  school  without  these  three  favourite  scholars.  Ai-istotle 
flies  to  him — a  crowd  gathers  and  enters  with  him.  The 
idol  whose  oracles  they  wished  to  overturn  was  presented 
to  them.  He  was  then  a  respectable  old  man,  the  weight 
of  whose  years  had  enfeebled  his  memory.  The  combat 
was  not  long.  Some  rapid  sophisms  embarrassed  Plato. 
lie  saw  himself  surrounded  by  the  inevitable  traps  of  the 
subtlest  logician.  Vanquished,  he  reproached  his  ancient 
scholar  by  a  beautiful  figure  : — "  He  has  kicked  against 
us  as  a  colt  against  its  mother." 

Soon  after  this  humiliating  adventure  he  ceased  to  give 
public  lectures.  Aristotle  rcimained  master  in  the  field  of 
battle.  He  raised  a  school,  and  devoted  himself  to  render  it 
the  most  famous  in  Greece.  But  the  three  favourite  scholars 
of  Plato,  zealous  to  avenge  the  cause  of  their  master,  and  to 
make  amends  for  their  imprudence  in  having  quitted  him, 
armed    themselves    against   the   usurper. — Xenocrates,    the 


212  ABELARD   AND   ELOISA. 

most  ardent  of  the  three,  attacked  Aristotle,  confounded  the 
logician,  and  reestabUsbed  Plato  in  all  his  rights.  Since 
that  time  the  academic  and  peripatetic  sects,  animated  by 
the  spirits  of  their  several  chiefs,  avowed  an  eternal  hos- 
tility. In  what  manner  his  works  have  descended  to  us 
has  been  told  in  a  preceding  article,  on  Destruction  of  Books. 
Aristotle  having  declaimed  irreverently  of  the  gods,  and 
dreading  the  fate  of  Socrates,  wished  to  retire  from  Athens. 
In  a  beautiful  manner  he  pointed  out  his  successor.  There 
were  two  rivals  in  his  schools :  Menedemus  the  Rhodian, 
and  Theophrastus  the  Lesbian.  Alluding  deUcately  to  his 
own  critical  situation,  he  told  liis  assembled  scholars  that  the 
wine  he  was  accustomed  to  drink  was  injurious  to  him,  and 
he  desired  them  to  bring  the  wines  of  Rhodes  and  Lesbos. 
He  tasted  both,  and  declared  they  both  did  honour  to  their 
soil,  each  being  excellent,  though  diifering  in  their  quality ; 
— the  Rhodian  wine  is  the  strongest,  but  the  Lesbian  is  the 
sweetest,  and  that  he  himself  preferred  it.  Thus  liis  in- 
genuity designated  his  favourite  Theophrastus,  the  author 
of  the  "  Chai'acters,"  for  his  successor. 


ABELARD  AND  ELOISA. 

Abelard,  so  famous  for  his  writings  and  his  amours  with 
Eloisa,  ranks  amongst  the  Heretics  for  opinions  concernuig 
the  Trinity  !  His  superior  genius  probably  made  him 
appear  so  culpable  in  the  eyes  of  his  enemies.  The  cabal 
formed  against  him  disturbed  the  earher  part  of  his  life  with 
a  thousand  persecutions,  till  at  length  they  persuaded  Ber- 
nard, his  old  friend,  but  who  had  now  turned  saint,  that 
poor  Abelard  was  what  their  mahce  described  him  to  be. 
Bernard,  inflamed  against  him,  condemned  unheard  the 
unfortunate  scholar.  But  it  is  remarkable  that  the  book 
which  was  burnt  as  unorthodox,  and  as  the  composition  of 


ABELARD   AND   ELOISA.  213 

Abelard,  was  in  fact  written  by  Peter  Lombard,  bishop  of 
Paris  ;  a  work  which  has  since  been  canonized  in  the  Sor- 
bonne,  and  on  which  the  scholastic.theology  is  founded.  The 
objectionable  passage  is  an  illustration  of  the  Trinity  by  the 
nature  of  a  syllogism  ! — "  As  (says  he)  the  three  propositions 
of  a  syllogism  form  but  one  truth,  so  the  Father  and  Son  con- 
stitute but  one  essence.  The  major  represents  the  Father, 
the  minor  the  Son,  and  the  conclusion  the  Holy  Ghost!"  It 
is  curious  to  add,  that  Bernard  himself  has  explained  this 
mystical  union  precisely  in  the  same  manner,  and  equally 
clear.  "  The  understanding,"  says  this  saint,  "  is  the  image 
of  God.  We  find  it  consists  of  three  parts  :  memory,  intel- 
ligence, and  will.  To  memory,  we  attribute  all  which  we 
know,  without  cogitation ;  to  intelligence,  all  truths  we  dis- 
cover which  have  not  been  deposited  by  memory.  By 
memory,  we  resemble  the  Father  ;  by  intelligence,  the  Son  ; 
and  by  will,  the  Holy  Ghost."  Bernard's  Lib.  de  Anima, 
cap.  i.  num.  6,  quoted  in  the  "  Mem.  Secretes  de  la  Repub- 
lique  des  Lettres."  We  may  add,  also,  that  because  Abelard, 
in  the  warmth  of  honest  indignation,  had  reproved  the  monks 
of  St.  Denis,  in  France,  and  St.  Gildas  de  Ruys,  in  Bretagne, 
for  the  hon-id  incontinence  of  their  lives,  they  joined  his 
enemies,  and  assisted  to  embitter  the  life  of  this  ingenious 
scholar,  who  perhaps  was  guilty  of  no  other  crime  than  that 
of  feehng  too  sensibly  an  attachment  to  one  who  not  only 
possessed  the  enchanting  attractions  of  the  softer  sex,  but, 
what  indeed  is  very  unusual,  a  congeniaUty  of  disposition, 
and  an  enthusiasm  of  imagination. 

''  Is  it,  in  heaven,  a  crime  to  love  too  well?  " 

It  appears  by  a  letter  of  Peter  de  Cluny  to  Eloisa,  that 
she  had  solicited  for  Abelard's  absolution.  The  abbot  gave 
it  to  her.  It  runs  thus  : — "  Ego  Petrus  Cluniacensis  Abbas, 
qui  Peti-ura  Aboslardum  in  monachum  Cluniacensem  recepi, 
et  corpus  ejus  furtim  delatum  Ileloissge  abbatissae  et  mouiali 
Paracleti  concessi,   auctoritate  omnipotentis  Dei   et  omnium 


214  ABELARD   AND   ELOISA. 

sanctorum    absolve    eum    pro   officio    ab    omnibus    peccatis 
suis." 

An  ancient  chronicle  of  Tours  recoi'ds,  that  when  they 
deposited  the  body  of  the  Abbess  Eloisa  in  the  tomb  of  her 
lover,  Peter  Abelard,  who  had  been  there  interred  twent} 
years,  this  faithful  husband  raised  his  arms,  stretched  them, 
and  closely  embraced  his  beloved  Eloisa.  This  poetic  iiction 
was  invented  to  sanctify,  by  a  miracle,  the  frailties  of  their 
youthful  days.  This  is  not  wonderful ; — but  it  is  strange 
that  Du  Chesne,  the  father  of  French  iiistory,  not  only  re- 
lates this  legendary  tale  of  the  ancient  clironiclers,  but  gives 
it  as  an  incident  well  authenticated,  and  maintains  its  possi- 
bihty  by  various  other  examples.  Such  fanciful  incidents 
once  not  only  embellished  poetry,  but  enlivened  history. 

Bayle  tells  us  that  billets  doux  and  amorous  vei'ses  are  two 
powerful  machines  to  employ  in  the  assaults  of  love,  particu- 
larly when  the  passionate  songs  the  poetical  lover  composes 
are  sung  by  himself.  This  secret  was  well  known  to  the  ele- 
gant Abelard.  Abelard  so  touched  the  sensible  heart  of 
Eloisa,  and  infused  such  fire  into  her  frame,  by  emjiloying 
hiBJine  pen,  and  hhjine  voice,  that  the  poor  woman  never 
recovered  from  the  attack.  She  herself  informs  us  that  he 
displayed  two  qualities  which  are  rarely  found  in  philoso- 
phers, and  by  which  he  could  instantly  win  the  affections  of 
the  female  ; — he  wrote  and  sung  finely.  He  composed  love- 
verses  so  beautiful,  and  songs  so  agreeable,  as  well  for  the 
words  as  the  airs,  that  all  the  world  got  them  by  heart,  and 
the  name  of  his  mistress  was  spread  from  province  to  prov- 
ince. 

What  a  gratification  to  the  enthusiastic,  the  amorous,  the 
vain  P^loisa !  of  whom  Lord  Lyttleton,  in  his  curious  Life  of 
Henry  II.,  observes,  that  had  she  not  been  compelled  to  read 
the  fathers  and  the  legends  in  a  nunnery,  and  had  been  suf- 
fered to  improve  her  genius  by  a  continued  application  to 
polite  literature,  from  what  appears  in  her  letters,  she  would 
have  excelled  any  man  of  that  age. 


ABELARD   AND   ELOISA.  215 

Eloisa,  I  suspect,  however,  would  have  proved  but  a  very 
hidiffereiit  polemic ;  slie  seems  to  have  had  a  certain  delicacy 
in  her  manners  which  rather  belongs  to  ihejifie  lady.  We 
cannot  but  smile  at  an  observation  of  hers  on  the  Apostles, 
which  we  find  in  her  letters  : — "  We  read  that  the  apostles, 
even  in  the  company  of  their  Master,  were  so  rustic  and  ill- 
bred,  that,  regardless  of  common  decorum,  as  they  passed 
through  the  corn-fields  they  plucked  the  ears,  and  ate  them 
like  ciiildren.  Nor  did  they  wash  their  hands  before  they 
sat  down  to  table.  To  eat  svith  unwashed  hands,  said  our 
Saviour  to  those  who  were  offended,  doth  not  defile  a  man." 

It  is  on  the  misconception  of  the  mild  apologetical  reply  of 
Jesus,  indeed,  that  religious  fanatics  have  really  considered, 
that,  to  be  careless  of  their  dress,  and  not  to  free  themselves 
from  filth  and  slovenliness,  is  an  act  of  piety  ;  just  as  the  late 
political  fanatics,  who  thought  that  republicanism  consisted  in 
the  most  offensive  filthiness.  On  this  principle,  that  it  is 
saint-like  to  go  dirty,  ragged,  and  slovenly,  says  Bishop  Lav- 
ington,  "  Enthusiasm  of  the  Methodists  and  Papists,"  how 
piously  did  Whitfield  take  care  of  the  outward  man,  who  in 
his  journals  writes,  "  My  apparel  was  mean — thought  it  un- 
becoming a  penitent  to  \\?i\e  powdered  hair. — I  wore  woollen 
gloves,  a  patched  gown,  and  dirty  shoes  !  " 

After  an  injury,  not  less  cruel  than  humiliating,  Abelard 
raises  the  school  of  the  Paraclete ;  with  what  enthusiasm  is 
he  followed  to  that  desert !  His  scholars  in  crowds  hasten  to 
their  adored  master ;  they  cover  their  mud  sheds  with  the 
branches  of  trees  ;  they  care  not  to  sleep  under  better  roofs, 
provided  they  remain  by  the  side  of  their  unfortunate  mas- 
ter. How  lively  must  have  been  their  taste  for  study  ! — it 
formed  their  solitary  passion,  and  the  love  of  glory  was  grat- 
ified even  in  that  desert. 

The  two  reprehensible  lines  in  Pope's  Eloisa,  too  cele- 
brated among  certain  of  its  readers — 

"  Not  Caesar's  empress  would  I  deign  to  prove; 
No. — make  me  mistress  to  the  man  I  love ! —  " 


216  PHYSIOGNOMY. 

are,  however,  found  in  her  original  letters.  The  author  of 
that  ancient  work,  "  The  Romaunt  of  the  Rose,"  has  given 
it  thus  naively ;  a  specimen  of  the  natural  style  in  those 
days : — 

Si  rempereur,  qui  est  a  Rome, 
Soubz  qui  doyveiit  etre  tout  hornme, 
1i\e.  daigiioit  prendre  pour  sa  femme, 
Et  me  faire  du  monde  dame ! 
Si  vouldroye-je  mieux,  dist-elle 
Et  Dieii  en  tesmoing  en  appeUe, 
Etre  sa  Putaiue  appellee 
Qu'etre  eraperiere  couronn6e. 


PHYSIOGNOMY. 

A  VERT  extraordinary  physiognomical  anecdote  has  been 
given  by  De  la  Place,  in  his  "  Pieces  Interessantes  et  pen 
Coniittes"  vol.  iv.  p.  8. 

A  friend  assured  him  that  he  had  seen  a  voluminous  and 
secret  correspondence  which  had  been  carried  on  between 
Louis  XIV.  and  his  favourite  physician,  De  la  Chambre,  on 
this  science.  The  faith  of  the  monarch  seems  to  have  been 
great,  and  the  purpose  to  which  this  correspondence  tended 
was  extraordinary  indeed,  and  perhaps  scarcely  credible. 
Who  will  believe  that  Louis  XIV.  was  so  convinced  of  that 
talent  which  De  la  Chambre  attributed  to  himself,  of  deciding 
merely  by  the  physiognomy  of  persons,  not  only  on  the  real 
bent  of  their  character,  but  to  what  employment  they  were 
adapted,  that  the  king  entered  into  a  secret  correspondence  to 
obtain  the  critical  notices  of  his  physiognomist  ?  That  Louis 
XIV.  should  have  pursued  this  system,  undetected  by  his 
own  courtiers,  is  also  singular ;  but  it  appears,  by  this  cor- 
respondence, that  this  art  positively  swayed  him  in  his  choice 
of  officers  and  favourites.  On  one  of  the  backs  of  these 
letters  De  la  Chambre  had  written,  "  If  I  die  before  his 
majesty,  he  will  incur  great  risk  of  making  many  an  unfor- 
tunate choice ! " 


PHYSIOGNOMY.  217 

This  collection  of  physiognomical  correspondence,  if  it 
does  really  exist,  would  form  a  curious  publication  ;  we  have 
heard  nothing  of  it !  De  la  Chambre  was  an  enthusiastic 
physiognomist,  as  appears  by  his  works  ;  "  The  Chai-acters 
of  the  Passions,"  four  volumes  in  quarto  ;  "  The  Art  of 
Knowing  Mankind ;  "  and  "  The  Knowledge  of  Animals." 
Lavater  quotes  his  "Vote  and  Interest"  in  favour  of  his 
favourite  science.  It  is,  however,  curious  to  add,  that  Philip 
Earl  of  Pembroke,  under  James  I.,  had  tbrraed  a  particular 
collection  of  portraits,  with  a  view  to  physiognomical  studies. 
According  to  Evelyn  on  Medals,  p.  302,  such  was  his  saga- 
city in  discovering  the  characters  and  dispositions  of  men  by 
their  countenances,  that  James  I.  made  no  little  use  of  his 
extraordinary  talent  on  the  Jirst  arrival  of  ambassadors  at 
court. 

The  following  physiological  definition  of  Piiysiognomt  is 
extracted  from  a  pubhcation  by  Dr.  Gwither,  of  the  year 
1604,  Avhich,  dropping  his  history  of  "  The  Animal  Spirit"  is 
curious  : — 

"  Soft  wax  cannot  receive  more  various  and  numerous 
unpressions  than  are  imprinted  on  a  man's  face  by  objects 
moving  his  affections  :  and  not  only  the  objects  themselves 
have  this  power,  but  also  the  very  images  or  ideas  ;  that  is 
to  say,  any  thing  that  puts  the  animal  spmts  into  the  same 
motion  that  the  olject  present  did,  will  have  the  same  effect 
with  the  object.  To  prove  the  first,  let  one  observe  a  man's 
face  looking  on  a  pitiful  object,  then  a  ridiculous,  then  a 
strange,  then  on  a  terrible  or  dangerous  object,  and  so  forth. 
For  the  second,  that  ideas  have  the  same  effect  with  the 
object,  dreams  confirm  too  often. 

"  The  manner  I  conceive  to  be  thus  : — the  animal  spirits, 
moved  in  the  sensory  by  an  object,  continue  their  motion  to 
the  brain ;  whence  the  motion  is  propagated  to  this  or  that 
particular  part  of  the  body,  as  is  most  suitable  to  the  design 
of  its  creation ;  having  first  made  an  alteration  in  the  face 
by  its  nerves,  especially  by  the  ^a//<e^tc  and  oculorum  motorii 


218  PHYSIOGNOMY. 

actuating  its  many  muscles,  as  the  dial-plate  to  that  stupen- 
dous  piece  of  clock-work  which  shows  what  is  to  be  expected 
next  from  the  striking  part ;  not  that  I  tliink  the  motion  of 
the  spirits  in  the  sensory  continued  by  the  impression  of  the 
object  all  the  way,  as  from  a  finger  to  the  foot ;  I  know  it  too 
weak,  though  the  tenseness  of  the  nerves  favours  it.  But  I 
(onceive  it  done  in  the  medulla  of  the  brain,  where  is  the 
common  stock  of  spa-its  ;  as  in  an  organ,  wlio>e  pipes  being 
uncovered,  the  air  rushes  into  them ;  but  the  keys  let  go,  are 
stopped  again.  Now,  if  by  repeated  acts  of  frequent  enter- 
taining of  a  favourite  idea  of  a  passion  or  vice,  which  natural 
temperament  has  hurried  one  to,  or  custom  dragged,  the  face 
is  so  often  put  into  that  posture  wliich  attends  such  acts,  that 
the  animal  spirits  find  such  latent  2>assages  into  its  nerves, 
that  it  is  sometimes  unalterably  set :  as  the  Indian  religious 
are  by  long  continuing  in  strange  postures  in  their  pagods. 
But  most  commonly  such  a  habit  is  contracted,  that  it  falls 
insensibly  into  that  posture  when  some  present  object  does 
not  obliterate  that  more  natural  impression  by  a  new,  or 
dissimulation  hide  it. 

"  Hence  it  is  that  we  see  great  drinhers  with  eyes  generally 
set  towards  the  nose,  the  adducent  muscles  bemg  often  em- 
ployed to  let  them  see  their  loved  liquor  in  the  glass  at  the  time 
of  drinking ;  which  were,  therefore,  called  hibitory.  Lascivious 
persons  are  remarkable  for  the  ocidornm  mobilis  pcddanda, 
as  Petronius  calls  it.  From  this  also  we  may  solve  the 
Quaker's  expecting  face,  waiting  for  the  pretended  spirit  ; 
and  the  melancholy  face  of  the  sectaries  ;  the  studious  face 
of  men  of  great  application  of  mind  ;  revengeful  and  bloody 
men,  like  executioners  in  the  act :  and  though  silence  in  a 
sort  may  awhile  pass  for  wisdom,  yet,  sooner  or  later,  Saint 
Martin  peeps  through  the  disguise  to  undo  all.  A  changeable 
face  I  have  observed  to  show  a  changeable  mind.  But  I 
would  by  no  means  have  what  has  been  said  understood  as 
without  exception ;  for  I  doubt  not  but  sometimes  there  are 
found  men  with  great  and  virtuous  souls  under  very  unprom- 
isinsr  outsides." 


CHARACTERS   DESCRIBED   BY  MUSICAL  NOTES.      219 

The  great  Prince  of  Conde  was  very  expert  in  a  sort  of 
physiognomy  which  showed  the  peculiar  habits,  motions,  and 
postures  of  familiar  life  and  mechanical  employments.  He 
would  sometimes  lay  wagers  with  his  friends,  that  he  would 
guess,  upon  the  Pont  Neuf,  what  trade  persons  were  of  that 
passed  by,  from  their  walk  and  air. 


CHARACTERS  DESCRIBED  BY  MUSICAL  NOTES. 

The  idea  of  describing  characters  under  the  names  of  Mu- 
sical Instruments  has  been  already  displayed  in  two  most 
pleasing  papers  which  embellish  the  Tutler,  written  by  Addi- 
son. He  dwells  on  this  idea  with  imcommon  success.  It 
has  been  applauded  for  its  orifjinaJity  ;  and  in  the  general 
preface  to  that  work,  those  ])apers  are  distinguished  for  their 
felicity  of  imagination.  The  following  paper  was  published 
in  the  year  1700,  in  a  volume  of"  Philosophiail  Transactions 
and  Collections,"  and  the  two  numbers  of  Addison  in  the  year 
1710.  It  is  probable  that  this  inimitable  writer  borrowed 
the  seminal  hint  from  this  work  : — 

"A  conjecture  at  dispositions  from  the  modulations  of  the 
voice. 

"  Sitting  in  some  company,  and  having  been  but  a  little 
before  musical,  I  chanced  to  take  notice,  that,  in  ordinary 
discourse,  words  were  spoken  in  perfect  notes  ;  and  that  some 
of  the  company  used  eighths,  some  fifths,  some  thirds  ;  and 
that  his  discourse  which  was  most  pleasing,  his  words,  as  to 
their  tone,  consisted  most  of  cojcords,  and  were  of  discords 
of  such  as  made  up  harmony.  The  same  person  was  the 
most  affable,  pleasant,  and  best-natured  in  the  company. 
This  suggests  a  reason  why  many  discourses  which  one  hears 
with  much  pleasure,  when  they  come  to  be  read  scarcely 
Beem  the  same  things. 

"  From  this  difference  of  Music  in  Spkech,  we  may  con 


220  MILTON. 

jecture  tliut  of  Tempers.  We  know  the  Doric  mood  sounds 
gravity  and  sobriety ;  the  Lydian,  buxomness  and  freedom ; 
the  yEolic,  sweet  stillness  and  quiet  composure  ;  the  Phrygian, 
jollity  and  youthful  levity ;  the  Ionic  is  a  stiller  of  storms 
and  disturbances  arising  from  passion ;  and  why  may  we  not 
reasonably  suppose,  that  those  whose  speech  naturally  runs 
into  tlie  notes  peculiar  to  any  of  these  moods,  are  hkewise  in 
nature  hei*eunto  congenerous  ?  C  Fa  ut  may  show  me  to  be 
of  an  ordinary  capacity,  though  good  disposition.  G  Sol  re  ut, 
to  be  peevish  and  effeminate.  Flats,  a  manly  or  melancholic 
sadness.  He  who  hath  a  voice  which  wiU  in  some  measure 
agree  with  all  cliffs,  to  be  of  good  parts,  and  fit  for  variety 
of  employments,  yet  somewhat  of  an  inconstant  nature.  Like- 
wise from  the  Times  :  so  semi-briefs  may  speak  a  temper 
dull  and  phlegmatic ;  minims,  grave  and  serious ;  crotchets, 
a  prompt  wit ;  quavers,  vehemency  of  passion,  and  scolds  use 
them.  Semi-brief -rest  may  denote  one  either  stupid  or  fuUer 
of  thoughts  than  he  can  utter ;  minim-rest,  one  that  delibe- 
rates ;  crotchet-rest,  one  in  a  passion.  So  that  from  the 
natural  use  of  Mood,  Note,  and  Time,  we  may  collect 
Dispositions." 


JkOLTON. 

It  is  painful  to  observe  the  acrimony  which  the  most  emi- 
nent scholars  have  infused  frequently  in  their  controversial 
writings.  The  pohteness  of  the  present  times  has  in  some 
degi'ce  softened  the  malignity  of  the  man,  in  the  dignity  of 
the  author ;  but  this  is  by  no  means  an  irrevocable  law. 

It  is  said  not  to  be  honourable  to  literature  to  revive 
such  controversies ;  and  a  work  entitled  "  Querelles  Litte- 
raires,"  when  it  first  appeared,  excited  loud  murmurs ;  but  it 
has  its  moral :  like  showing  the  drunkard  to  a  youth,  that  he 
may  turn  aside  disgusted  with  ebriety.  Must  we  suppose 
that  men  of  letters  are  exempt  from  the  human  passions  ? 


&nLTON.  221 

Their  sensibility,  on  the  contrary,  is  more  irritable  than  that 
of"  others.  To  observe  the  ridiculous  attitudes  in  which  great 
men  appear,  when  they  employ  the  style  of  the  fish-market, 
may  be  one  great  means  of  restraining  that  ferocious  pride 
often  breaking  out  in  the  republic  of  letters.  Johnson  at 
least  appears  to  have  entertained  the  same  opinion ;  for  he 
thought  proper  to  republish  the  low  invective  of  Dryden 
against  Settle  ;  and  since  I  have  published  my  "  Quarrels  of 
Authors,"  it  becomes  me  to  say  no  more. 

The  celebrated  controversy  of  Salmasius,  continued  by 
Morns  with  Milton — the  first  the  pleader  of  King  Charles, 
the  latter  the  advocate  of  the  people — was  of  that  magnitude, 
that  all  Europe  took  a  part  in  the  paper-war  of  these  two 
great  men.  The  answer  of  Milton,  who  perfectly  massacred 
Salmasius,  is  now  read  but  by  the  few.  Whatever  is  ad- 
di-essed  to  the  times,  however  great  may  be  its  merits,  is 
doomed  to  perish  with  the  times  ;  yet  on  these  pages  the 
philosopher  will  not  contemplate  in  vain. 

It  will  form  no  uninteresting  article  to  gather  a  few  of  the 
rhetorical  weeds,  for  flowers  we  cannot  well  call  them,  with 
which  they  mutually  pi-esented  each  other.  Their  rancour 
was  at  least  equal  to  their  erudition,  the  two  most  learned 
antagonists  of  a  learned  age'! 

Salmasius  was  a  man  of  vast  erudition,  but  no  taste.  His 
writings  are  learned,  but  sometimes  ridiculous.  He  called 
his  work  Defensio  Regia,  Defence  of  Kings.  The  opening 
of  this  work  provokes  a  laugh : — "  EngUshmen  !  who  toss  the 
heads  of  kings  as  so  many  tennis-balls ;  who  play  with 
crowns  as  if  they  were  bowls ;  who  look  upon  sceptres  as  so 
many  crooks." 

That  the  deformity  of  the  body  is  an  idea  we  attach  to 
the  deformity  of  the  mind,  the  vulgar  must  acknowledge  ; 
but  surely  it  is  unpardonable  in  the  enlightened  philosopher 
thus  to  compare  the  crookedness  of  corporeal  matter  witb 
the  rectitude  of  the  intellect ;  yet  Milbourne  and  Dennis, 
the  last  a  formidable  critic,  have  frequently  considered,  that 


222  MILTON. 

comparing  Dryden  and  Pope  to  whatever  the  eye  turned 
from  with  displeasure,  was  very  good  argument  to  lower 
their  literary  abilities.  Salmasius  seems  also  to  have  enter- 
tained this  idea,  though  his  spies  in  England  gave  him  wrong 
information ;  or,  possibly,  he  only  drew  the  figure  of  his  own 
distempered  imagination. 

Salmasius  sometimes  reproaches  Milton  as  being  but  a 
puny  piece  of  man  ;  an  homuncukis,  a  dwarf  deprived  of  the 
human  figure,  a  bloodless  being,  composed  of  nothing  but 
skin  and  bone  ;  a  contemptible  pedagogue,  fit  only  to  flog 
lii*  boys  :  and,  rising  into  a  poetic  frenzy,  applies  to  him  the 
words  of  Virgil,  "  Monstrum  horrendutn,  informe,  ingens,  cui 
lumen  ademptum."  Our  great  poet  thought  this  senseless 
declamation  merited  a  serious  refutation  ;  perhaps  he  did  not 
wish  to  appear  despicable  in  the  eyes  of  the  ladies  ;  and  he 
would  not  be  silent  on  the  subject,  he  says,  lest  any  one 
should  consider  him  as  the  credulous  Spaniards  are  made  to 
believe  by  their  priests,  that  a  heretic  is  a  kind  of  rhinoceros 
or  a  dog-headed  monster.  Milton  says,  that  he  does  not 
think  any  one  ever  considered  him  as  unbeautiful ;  that  his 
size  rather  approaches  mediocrity  than  the  diminutive  ;  that 
he  still -felt  the  same  courage  and  the  same  strength  which  he 
possessed  when  young,  when,  witli  his  sword,  he  felt  no  dif- 
ficulty to  combat  with  men  more  robust  than  himself;  that 
his  face,  far  from  being  pale,  emaciated,  and  wrinkled,  was 
sufficiently  creditable  to  him  :  for  though  he  had  passed  his 
fortieth  year,  he  was  in  all  other  respects  ten  years  younger. 
And  very  pathetically  he  adds,  "  that  even  his  eyes,  blind  as 
they  are,  are  unblemished  in  their  appearance  ;  in  this  in- 
stance alone,  and  much  against  my  inclination,  I  am  a  de- 
ceiver !  " 

Morus,  in  his  Epistle  dedicatory  of  his  Regii  Sangidnis 
Glamor,  compares  Milton  to  a  hangman ;  his  disordered 
vision  to  the  blindness  of  his  soul,  and  vomits  forth  hia 
venom. 

When  Sahnasius  found  that  his  strictures  on  the  person  of 


MILTON.  223 

Milton  were  false,  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  uncom- 
monly beautiful,  he  ihen  turned  his  battery  against  tlio>c 
graces  with  which  Nature  had  so  liberally  adorned  his  ad- 
versary :  and  it  is  now  that  he  seems  to  have  laid  no  restric- 
tions on  his  pen  ;  but,  raging  with  the  irritation  of  Milton's 
success,  he  throws  out  the  blackest  calumnies,  and  the  most 
infamous  aspersions. 

It  must  be  observed,  when  Milton  first  proposed  to  an- 
swer Salmasius,  he  had  lost  the  use  of  one  of  his  eyes ;  nnd 
his  physicians  declared,  that  if  he  applied  himself  to  the  con- 
troversy, the  other  would  likewise  close  for  ever !  His  pa- 
triotism was  not  to  be  baffled,  but  with  life  itself.  Unhap- 
pily, the  prediction  of  his  physicians  took  place  !  Thus  a 
learned  man  in  the  occupations  of  study  falls  blind  ;  a  cir- 
cumstance even  now  not  read  without  sympathy.  Salmasius 
considers  it  as  one  from  which  he  may  draw  caustic  ridicule 
and  satiric  severity. 

Salmasius  glories  that  Milton  lost  his  health  and  his  eyes 
in  answering  his  apology  for  King  Charles  !  He  does  not 
now  reproach  him  with  natural  deformities  ;  but  he  malig- 
nantly sympathizes  with  him,  that  he  now  no  more  is  in  pos- 
session of  that  beauty  which  rendered  him  so  amiable  during 
his  residence  in  Italy.  He  speaks  more  plainly  in  a  follow- 
ing page  ;  and,  in  a  word,  would  blacken  the  austere  virtue 
of  Milton  with  a  crime  infamous  to  name. 

Impartiality  of  criticism  obliges  us  to  confess  that  Milton 
was  not  destitute  of  rancour.  When  he  was  told  that  his 
adversary  boasted  he  had  occasioned  the  loss  of  his  eyes,  he 
answered,  with  ferocity — "  And  I  shall  cost  him  his  life  !  " 
A  prediction  which  was  soon  after  verified ;  for  Christina, 
Queen  of  Sweden,  withdrew  her  patronage  fi-om  Salmasius, 
and  sided  with  Milton.  The  universal  neglect  the  proud 
scholar  felt  hastened  his  death  in  the  course  of  a  twelve- 
month. 

The  greatness  of  Milton's  mind  was  degraded  !  He  act- 
ually condescended   to   enter  into  a   correspondence  in    Hoi- 


224  ORIGIN   OF  NEWSPAPERS. 

land,  to  obtain  little  scandalous  anecdotes  of  his  miserable 
adversary,  Morus ;  and  deigned  to  adulate  the  unworthy- 
Christina  of  Sweden,  because  she  had  expressed  herself 
favourably  on  his  "  Defence."  Of  late  years,  we  have  had 
too  many  instances  of  this  worst  of  passions,  the  antipathies 
of  poUtics ! 


ORIGIN   OF  NEWSPAPERS. 

We  are  indebted  to  the  Italians  for  the  idea  of  news- 
papers. The  title  of  their  gazettas  was,  perhaps,  derived 
from  gnzzera,  a  magpie  or  chatterer-;  or,  more  probably, 
from  a  farthing  coin,  peculiar  to  the  city  of  Venice,  called 
gazetta,  which  w^as  the  common  price  of  the  newspapers.  An- 
other etymologist  is  for  deriving  it  from  the  Latin  gaza, 
which  would  colloquially  lengthen  into  gazetta,  and  signify  a 
little  treasury  of  news.  The  Spanish  derive  it  from  the 
Latin  gaza,  and  likewise  their  gazatero,  and  our  gazetteer, 
for  a  writer  of  the  gazette,  and,  what  is  peculiar  to  them 
selves,  gazetista,  for  a  lover  of  the  gazette. 

Newspapers  then  took  their  birth  in  thi*t  principal  land  of 
modern  politicians,  Italy,  and  under  the  government  of  that 
aristocratical  republic,  Venice.  The  first  paper  was  a  Ve- 
netian one  and  only  monthly ;  but  it  was  merely  the  news- 
paper of  the  government.  Other  governments  afterwards 
adopted  the  Venetian  plan  of  a  newspaper  with  the  Vene- 
tian name  : — from  a  solitary  government  gazette,  an  inunda- 
tion of  newspapei's  has  burst  upon  us, 

Mr.  George  Chalmers,  in  his  Life  of  Ruddiman,  gives  a 
curious  particular  of  these  Venetian  gazettes :  ''A  jealous 
government  did  not  allow  a  printed  newspaper ;  and  the 
Venetian  gazetta  continued  long  after  the  invention  of  print- 
ing, to  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  even  to  our 
own  days,  to  be  distributed  in   manuscript"     In  the  Mag- 


ORIGIN   OF  NEWSPAPERS.  225 

Habechian  library  at  Florence,  are  tbirtj  volumes  of  Vene- 
tian gazettas,  all  in  manuscript. 

Those  who  first  wrote  newspapers  were  called  by  the  Ital- 
ians menanti ;  because,  says  Vossius,  they  intended  com- 
monly by  these  loose  papers  to  spread  about  defamatory 
reflections,  and  were  therefore  prohibited  in  Italy  by  Gregor}? 
XIII.  by  a  particular  bull,  under  the  name  of  menantes, 
from  the  Latin  minantes,  threatening.  Menage,  however, 
derives  it  from  the  Italian  menare,  which  signifies  to  lead  at 
large,  or  spread  afar. 

We  are  indebted  to  the  wisdom  of  Elizabeth  and  the  pru- 
dence of  Burleigh  for  the  first  newspaper.  The  epoch  of 
the  Spanish  Armada  is  also  the  epoch  of  a  genuine  news- 
paper. In  the  British  Museum  are  several  newspapers 
which  were  printed  while  the  Spanish  fleet  was  in  the  Eng- 
lish Channel  during  the  year  1588.  It  was  a  wise  policy  to 
prevent,  during  a  moment  of  general  anxiety,  the  danger  of 
false  reports,  by  publishing  real  information.  The  earliest 
newspaper  is  entitled  "  Tiie  English  Mercurie,"  which  by 
authority  was  "imprinted  at  London  by  her  highness's  printer, 
1588."  These  were,  however,  but  extraordinary  gazettes, 
not  regularly  published.  In  this  obscure  origin  they  were 
skilfully  directed  by  the  policy  of  tliat  great  statesman  Bur- 
leigh, who,  to  inflame  the  national  feeling,  gives  an  extract 
of  a  letter  from  Madrid  which  speaks  of  putting  the  queen 
to  death,  and  the  instruments  of  torture  on  board  the  Span- 
ish fleet. 

George  Chalmers  first  exultingly  took  down  these  patriar- 
chal newspapers,  covered  with  the  dust  of  two  centuries. 

The  first  newspaper  in  the  collection  of  the  British  Museum 
is  marked  No.  50,  and  is  in  Roman,  not  in  black  letter.  It 
contains  the  usual  articles  of  news,  like  the  London  Gazette 
of  the  present  day.  In  that  curious  paper,  there  are  news 
dated  from  Whitehall,  on  the  23d  July,  1588.  Under  the 
date  of  July  26,  there  is  the  following  notice:  "Yesteiday 
the  Scots  ambassador,  being  introduced  to  Sir  Francis  Wal- 

VOI..  I.  lo 


226  ORIGIN  OF  NEWSPAPERS. 

singham,  had  a  private  audience  of  her  majesty,  to  whom  he 
delivered  a  letter  from  the  king  his  master ;  containing  the 
most  cordial  assurances  of  his  resolution  to  adhere  to  her 
majesty's  interests,  and  to  those  of  the  protestant  religion. 
And  it  may  not  here  be  improper  to  take  notice  of  a  wise  and 
spiritual  saying  of  this  young  prince  (he  was  twenty-two) 
to  the  queen's  minister  at  his  court,  viz :  That  all  the  favour 
he  did  expect  from  the  Spaniards  was  the  courtesy  of  Poly- 
pheme  to  Ulysses,  to  he  the  last  devoured."  The  gazetteer 
of  the  present  day  would  hardly  give  a  more  decorous  account 
of  the  introduction  of  a  foreign  minister.  The  aptness  of 
King  James's  classical  saying  carried  it  from  the  newspaper 
into  history.  I  must  add,  that  in  respect  to  his  wit  no  man 
has  been  more  injured  than  this  monarch.  More  pointed 
sentences  are  recorded  of  James  I.  than  perhaps  of  any 
prince ;  and  yet,  such  is  the  delusion  of  that  medium  by 
which  the  popular  eye  sees  things  in  this  world,  that  he  is 
usually  considered  as  a  mere  royal  pedant.  I  have  entered 
more  largely  on  this  subject,  in  an  "  Inquiry  of  the  literary 
and  political  character  of  James  I."  * 

*  Since  the  appearance  of  the  eleventh  edition  of  this  worli,  the  detec- 
tion of  a  singiihvr  literary  deception  has  occurred.  The  evidence  respect- 
ing "  The  English  Mercurie  "  rests  on  the  alleged  discovery  of  the  literary 
antiquary,  George  Chalmers.  I  witnessed,  fifty  years  ago,  that  laborious 
researcher  busied  among  the  long  dusty  shelves  of  our  periodical  papers, 
which  then  reposed  in  the  ante-chamber  to  the  former  reading-room  of  the 
British  Museum.  To  the  industry  which  I  had  witnessed,  I  confided,  and 
such  positive  and  precise  evidence  could  not  fail  to  be  accepted  by  all. 
In  the  British  Museum,  indeed,  George  Chalmers  found  the  printed  "  Eng- 
lish Mercurie;  "  but  there  also,  it  now  appears,  he  might  have  seen  ihe 
vriyinal,  with  all  its  corrections,  before  it  was  sent  to  the  press,  written  on 
paper  of  modern  fabric.  The  detection  of  this  literary  imposture  has  been 
ingeniously  and  unquestionably  demonstrated  by  Mr.  Thomas  Watts,  in  a 
letter  to  Mr.  Panizzi,  the  keeper  of  the  printed  books  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum. The  fact  is,  the  whole  is  a  modern  forgery,  for  which  Birch,  preserving 
it  among  his  papers,  has  not  assigned  either  the  occasion  or  the  motive.  1 
am  inclined  to  suspect  that  it  was  a  ;Vm  desprit  of  historical  antiquarian- 
ism,  concocted  by  himself  and  his  friends  the  Yorkes,  with  whom,  as  it  ia 
well  known,  he  was  concerned  in  a  more  elegant  literary  recreation,  the 
composition  of  the  Athenian  Letters.    The  blunder  of  George  Chalmers  has 


ORIGIN   OF  NEWSPArKIIS.  227 

In  these  "  Mercuries  "  some  advertisements  of  books  j"un 
much  like  those  of  the  present  times,  and  exhibit  a  picture 
af  the  literature  of  those  days.  All  these  publications  were 
"imprinted  and  sold"  by  the  queen's  printers,  Field  and 
Baker. 

1st.  An  admonition  to  the  people  of  England,  wherein  are 
answered  the  slanderous  untruths  reproachfully  uttered  by 
Mar-prelate,  and  others  of  his  brood,  against  the  bishops  and 
chief  of  the  clergy.* 

2dly.  The  copy  of  a  letter  sent  to  Don  Bernardin  Men 
doza,  ambassador  in  France,  for  the  king  of  Spain ;  declar- 
ing the  state  of  England,  &c.     The  second  edition. 

3dly.  An  exact  journal  of  all  passages  at  the  siege  of 
Bergen-op-Zoom.     By  an  eye-witness. 

4thly.  Father  Parsons'  coat  well  dusted  ;  or,  short  and 
pithy  animadversions  on  that  infamous  fardle  of  abuse  and 
falsities,  entitled  Leicester  s  Commomvealtk.'f 

5thly.  Elizahetha  Triumphans,  an  heroic  poem,  by  James 
Aske  ;  with  a  declai'ation  how  her  excellence  was  entertained 
at  the  royal  course  at  Tilbury,  and  of  the  Dverthrow  of  the 
Spanish  fleet. 

Periodical  papers  seem  first  to  have  been  more  generally 
used  by  the  English,  during  the  civil  wars  of  the  usurper 
Cromwell,  to  disseminate  amongst  the  people  the  sentiments 
of  loyalty  or  rebellion,  according  as  their  authors  were  dis- 
posed.    Peter  Heylin,  in   the   preface  to  his    Cosmography, 

been  repeated  in  numerous  publiciitions  throughout  Europe,  and  in  America. 
I  think  it  better  to  correct  the  text  by  this  notice,  than  by  a  silent  sup- 
pression, that  it  may  remain  a  memorable  instance  of  the  danger  incurred 
by  tlie  historian  from  forged  documents;  and  a  proof  that  multii)lied  au- 
thorities add  no  strength  to  evidence,  when  all  are  to  be  traced  to  a  single 
Bource. 

*  I  have  written  the  history  of  the  Mar-prehtte  Miction,  in  "  Quarrels  of 
Authors,"  which  our  historians  appear  not  to  have  known.  The  materials 
were  suppressed  by  government,  and  not  preserved  even  in  our  national 
depositories. 

t  A  curious  secret  history  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  ascribed  in  its  day  to 
the  Jesuit  Parsons. 


228  ORIGIN   OF   NEWSPAPERS. 

mentions,  that  "  the  affairs  of  each  town,  of  war,  were  better 
presented  to  the  reader  in  the  Weekly  News-booJis."  Hence 
we  find  some  paper.-!,  entitled  "News  from  Hull,"  "Truths 
from  York,"  "  AVarrunteil  Tidings  from  Ireland,"'  &c.  We 
find  also  "  The  Scots'  Dove  "  opposed  to  "  The  Parliament 
Kite,"  or  "  The  Secret  Owl." — Keener  animosities  j  roduccd 
keener  tides :  "  Heraclitus  ridens  "  found  an  antagoi;isl  in 
"  Deraocritus  ridens,"  and  "The  "Weekly  Discoverer"  was 
shortly  met  by  "The  Discoverer  stript  naked."  "Mercurius 
Britannicus"  was  grappled  by  "Mercurius  Mastix,  faithfully 
lashing  all  Scouts,  Mercuries,  Posts,  Spies,  and  others." 
Under  all  these  names,  papers  had  appeared,  but  a  "  Mercury  " 
was  the  prevailing  title  of  these  "  News-books,"  and  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  writer  were  generally  shown  by  the  additional 
epithet.  We  find  an  alarming  number  of  these  Mercuries, 
which,  were  the  story  not  too  long  to  tell,  might  excite  laugh- 
ter ;  they  present  us  with  a  vei'y  curious  picture  of  those 
singular  times. 

Devoted  to  political  purposes,  they  soon  became  a  public 
nuisance  by  serving  as  receptacles  of  party  malice,  and 
echoing  to  the  farthest  ends  of  the  kingdom  the  insolent  voice 
of  all  factions.  They  set  the  minds  of  men  more  at  variance, 
inflamed  their  tempers  to  a  greater  fierceness,  and  gave  a 
keener  edge  to  the  sharpness  of  civil  discord. 

Such  works  will  always  find  adventurers  adapted  to  their 
scurrilous  purposes,  who  neither  want  at  times  either  talents, 
or  boldness,  or  wit,  or  argument.  A  vast  crowd  issued  from 
the  press,  and  are  now  to  be  found  in  private  collections. 
They  form  a  race  of  authors  unknown  to  most  readers  of 
these  times :  the  names  of  some  of  their  chiefs,  however, 
have  reached  us,  and  in  the  minor  chronicle  of  domestic 
literature,  I  i-ank  three  notable  heroes  ;  Marehamont  Need- 
ham,  Sir  John  Birkenhead,  and  Sir  Roger  L'Estrange. 

Marehamont  Needkam,  the  great  patriarch  of  newspaper 
writers,  was  a  man  of  versatile  talents  and  more  versatile 
politics ;  a  bold  adventurer,  and  most  successful,  because  the 


ORIGIN   OF   NEWSPAPERS.  229 

mo-t  profligate  of  his  tribe.  From  college  he  came  to  Lon- 
don ;  was  an  usher  in  Merchant  Tailors'  school ;  then  an 
under  clerk  in  Gray's  Inn ;  at  length  studied  physic,  and 
practised  chemistry  ;  and  finally,  he  was  a  captain,  and  in 
the  words  of  our  great  literary  antiquary,  "  siding  with  the 
rout  and  scum  of  the  people,  he  made  them  weekly  sport  by 
railing  at  all  that  was  noble,  in  his  Intelligence,  called  Mer- 
curius  Britannicus,  wherein  his  endeavours  were  to  sacrifice 
the  fame  of  some  lord,  or  any  person  of  quality,  and  of  the 
king  himself,  to  the  beast  with  many  heads."  He  soon  be- 
came popular,  and  was  known  under  the  name  of  Captain 
Needham,  of  Gray's  Inn ;  and  whatever  he  now  wrote  was 
deemed  oracular.  But  whether  from  a  slight  imprisonment 
for  aspersing  Charles  I.  or  some  pique  with  his  own  party, 
he  requested  an  audience  on  his  knees  with  the  king,  recon- 
ciled himself  to  his  majesty,  and  showed  himself  a  violent 
royalist  in  his  "  Mercurius  Pi-agmaticus,"  and  galled  the 
presbyterians  with  his  wit  and  quips.  Some  time  after,  when 
the  popular  party  prevailed,  he  was  still  further  enlightened 
and  was  got  over  by  President  Bradshaw,  as  ea.sily  as  by 
Charles  I.  Our  Mercurial  writer  became  once  more  a  vir- 
ulent presbj-terian,  and  lashed  the  royalists  outrageously  in 
his  "  Mercurius  Politicus ; "  at  length  on  the  return  of 
Charles  11.  being  now  conscious,  says  our  cynical  friend 
Anthony,  that  he  might  be  in  danger  of  the  halter,  once  more 
he  is  said  to  have  fled  into  Holland,  waiting  for  an  act  of 
oblivion.  For  money  given  to  a  hungry  courtier,  Needham 
obtained  his  pardon  under  the  great  seal.  He  latterly  prac- 
tised as  a  physician  among  his  party,  but  lived  detested  by 
the  royalists  ;  and  now  only  committed  harmless  treasons 
with  the  College  of  Physicians,  on  whom  he  poured  all  tliat 
gall  and  vinegar  which  the  government  had  suppressed  from 
flowing  through  its  natural  channel. 

The  royalists  were  not  without  their  Needham  in  tlie 
prompt  activity  of  Sir  John  Birlenhead.  In  buffoonery, 
keenness,  and  boldness,  having  been  frequently  imprisoned, 


230  ORIGIN   OF   NEWSPAPERS. 

he  was  not  inferior,  nor  was  he  at  times  less  an  adventurer. 
His  "Mercurius  Aulicus"  was  devoted  to  the  court,  then  at 
Oxford.  But  he  was  the  fertile  parent  of  numerous  political 
pamphlets,  which  appear  to  abound  in  banter,  wit,  and  satire. 
Prompt  to  seize  on  every  temporary  circumstance,  he  had 
equal  facility  in  execution.  His  "Paul's  Churchyard"  is  a 
bantering  pamphlet,  containing  fictitious  titles  of  books  and 
acts  of  parliament,  reflecting  on  the  mad  reformers  of  those 
times.  One  of  his  poems  is  entitled  "  The  Jolt"  being  writ- 
ten on  the  Protector  having  fallen  off  his  own  coach-box : 
Cromwell  had  received  a  present  from  the  German  Count 
Oldenburgh,  of  six  German  horses,  and  attempted  to  drive 
them  him-^elf  in  Hyde  Park,  when  this  great  political  Phae- 
ton met  the  accident  of  which  Sir  John  Birkenhead  was  not 
slow  to  comprehend  the  benefit,  and  hints  how  unfortunately 
for  the  country  it  turned  out!  Sir  John  was  during  the 
dominion  of  Cromwell  an  author  by  profession.  After 
various  imprisonments  for  his  majesty's  cause,  says  the 
venerable  historian  of  English  literature  already  quoted, 
"he  lived  by  his  wits,  in  helping  young  gentlemen  out  at 
dead  lifts  in  making  poems,  songs,  and  epistles  on  and  to 
their  mistresses ;  as  also  in  translating,  and  other  petite 
employments."  He  lived  however  after  the  Restoration  to 
become  one  of  the  masters  of  requests,  with  a  salary  of 
£3,000  a  year.  But  he  showed  the  baseness  of  his  spirit, 
says  Anthony,  by  slighting  those  who  had  been  his  benefac- 
tors in  his  necessities. 

Sir  Roger  V Estrange  among  his  rivals  was  esteemed  as 
the  most  perfect  model  of  political  writing.  He  was  a  strong 
party-writer  on  the  government  side,  for  Charles  the  Second, 
and  the  compositions  of  the  author  seem  to  us  coarse,  yet 
they  contain  much  idiomatic  expression.  His  ^sop's  Fables? 
are  a  curious  specimen  of  familiar  style.  Queen  Mary 
showed  a  due  contempt  of  him  after  the  Revolution,  by  this 
anagram : — 

Roger  D  Estrange, 
Lye  strange  Roger  ! 


ORIGIN  OF  NEWSPAPERS.  231 

Such  were  the  three  patriarchs  of  newspapers.  De  Saint 
Foix  gives  the  origin  of  newspapers  to  France.  Kenamlot, 
a  physician  at  Paris,  to  amuse  his  patients  was  a  gi-eat  col- 
lector of  news ;  and  he  found  by  these  means  that  he  was 
more  sought  after  than  his  learned  brethren.  But  as  the 
seasons  were  not  always  sickly,  and  he  had  many  hours  not 
occupied  by  his  patients,  he  reflected,  after  several  years  of 
assiduity  given  up  to  this  singular  employment,  that  he  might 
turn  it  to  a  better  account,  by  giving  every  week  to  hi? 
patients,  who  in  this  case  were  the  public  at  large,  some 
fugitive  sheets  which  should  contain  the  news  of  various 
countries.     He  obtained  a  privilege  for  this  purpose  in  1G32. 

At  the  Restoration  the  proceedings  of  parliament  were 
interdicted  to  be  published,  unless  by  authority ;  and  the  first 
daily  paper  after  the  Revolution  took  the  popular  title  of 
"  The  Orange  Intelligencer." 

In  the  reign  of  Queen  A7ine,  thei*e  was  but  one  daily 
paper ;  the  others  were  weekly.  Some  atteni])ted  to  intro- 
duce literary  subjects,  and  others  topics  of  a  more  general 
speculation.  Sir  Richard  Steele  formed  the  plan  of  his 
Taller.  He  designed  it  to  embrace  the  three  provinces,  of 
manners  and  morals,  of  literature,  and  of  politics.  The 
public  were  to  be  conducted  insensibly  into  so  different  a 
track  from  that  to  which  tliey  had  been  hitherto  accustomed. 
Hence  politics  were  admitted  into  his  paper.  But  it  remained 
for  the  chaster  genius  of  Addison  to  banish  this  painful  topic 
from  his  elegant  pages.  The  writer  in  polite  letters  felt 
himself  degraded  by  sinking  into  the  diurnal  narrator  of 
political  events,  which  so  frequently  originate  in  rumours 
and  party  fictions.  From  this  time,  newspapers  and  period- 
ical literature  became  distinct  works — at  present,  there  seems 
to  be  an  attempt  to  revive  this  union  ;  it  is  a  retrograde  step 
for  the  independent  dignity  of  literature. 


232  TRIALS   AND    PROOFS   OF  GUILT 


TRIALS   AND   PROOFS   OF   GUILT  IN   SUPERSTI- 
TIOUS  AGES. 

The  strange  trials  to  which  those  suspected  of  guilt  were 
put  in  the  middle  ages,  conducted  with  many  devout  ceremo- 
nies by  the  ministers  of  religion,  were  pronounced  to  be  the 
judgments  of  God!  The  ordeal  consisted  of  various  kinds: 
walking  bhndfold  amidst  burning  ploughshares ;  passing 
through  fires ;  holding  in  the  hand  a  red-hot  bar ;  and  plung- 
ing the  arm  into  boiling  water :  the  popular  atiirraation, — 
"  I  will  put  my  hand  in  the  fire  to  confirm  this,"  was  derived 
from  this  custom  of  our  rude  ancestors.  Challenging  the 
accuser  to  single  combat,  when  frequently  the  stoutest  cham- 
pion was  allowed  to  supply  their  place ;  swallowing  a  morsel 
of  consecrated  bread ;  sinking  or  swimming  in  a  river  for 
witchcraft ;  or  weighing  a  witch ;  stretching  out  the  arms 
before  the  cross,  till  the  champion  soonest  wearied  dropped 
his  arms,  and  lost  his  estate,  which  was  decided  by  this  very 
short  chancery  suit,  called  the  judicium  crucis.  The  bishop 
of  Paris  and  the  abbot  of  St.  Denis  disputed  about  the 
patronage  of  a  monastery :  Pepin  the  Short,  not  being  able 
to  decide  on  their  confused  claims,  decreed  one  of  these  judg- 
ments of  God,  that  of  the  Cross.  The  bishop  and  abbot 
each  chose  a  man,  and  both  the  men  appeared  in  the  chapel, 
where  they  stretched  out  their  arms  in  the  form  of  a  cross. 
The  spectators,  more  devout  than  the  mob  of  the  present  day, 
but  still  the  mob,  were  piously  attentive,  but  betted  however 
now  for  one  man,  now  for  the  other,  and  critically  watched 
the  slightest  motion  of  the  arms.  The  bishop's  man  was  first 
tired: — he  let  his  arms  fall,  and  ruined  his  patron's  cause 
forever.  Though  sometimes  these  trials  might  be  eluded  by 
the  artifice  of  the  priest,  numerous  were  the  innocent  victims 
who  unquestionably  suSered  in  these  superstitious  practices. 

From  the  tenth  to  the  twelfth  century  they  were  common. 
Hildebert,  bishop  of  Mans,  being  accused  of  high  treason  by 


IN   SLTERSTITIOUS   AGES-  233 

our  William  Rufus,  was  prepared  to  undergo  one  of  these 
trials,  when  Ives,  bishop  of  Chartres,  convinced  him  that 
tliey  were  against  the  canons  of  the  constitutions  of  the 
church,  and  adds,  that  in  this  manner  Innocentiam  defendere, 
est  innocentiam  perdere. 

An  abbot  of  St.  Aubin,  of  Angers,  in  1006,  having  refused 
to  present  a  horse  to  the  Viscount  of  Tours,  which  the  vis- 
count claimed  in  right  of  his  lordship,  whenever  an  abbot 
first  took  possession  of  that  abbey;  the  ecclesiastic  offered  to 
justify  himself  by  the  trial  of  the  ordeal,  or  by  duel,  for 
which  he  projX>sed  to  furnish  a  man.  The  viscount  at  first 
agreed  to  the  duel ;  but,  reflecting  that  these  combats,  though 
sanctioned  by  the  church,  depended  wholly  on  the  skill  or 
vigour  of  the  adversary,  and  could  therefore  afford  no  sub- 
stantial proof  of  the  equity  of  his  claim,  he  proposed  to 
compromise  the  matter  in  a  manner  which  strongly  charac- 
terizes the  times  :  he  waived  his  claim,  on  condition  that  the 
abbot  should  not  forget  to  mention  in  his  prayers  himself,  his 
wife,  and  his  brothers  !  As  the  orisons  appeared  to  the 
abbot,  in  comparison  with  the  horse,  of  little  or  no  value,  he 
accepted  the  proposal. 

In  the  tenth  century  the  right  of  representation  was  not 
fixed  :  it  was  a  question,  whether  the  sons  of  a  son  ought  to 
be  reckoned  among  the  children  of  the  family,  and  succeed 
equally  with  their  uncles,  if  their  fathers  happened  to  die 
while  their  grandfathers  survived.  This  point  was  decided  by 
one  of  these  combats.  The  champion  in  behalf  of  the  right 
of  children  to  represent  their  deceased  father  proved  victori- 
ous. It  was  then  established  by  a  perpetual  decree  that  they 
should  thenceforward  share  in  the  inheritance,  together  with 
their  uncles.  In  the  eleventh  century  the  same  mode  wa^i 
practised  to  decide  respecting  two  rival  Liturgies!  A  pair 
of  knights,  clad  in  complete  armour,  were  the  critics  to  decide 
which  was  the  authentic. 

"  If  two  neighbours,"  says  the  capitularies  of  Dagobert, 
"dispute  respecting  the  boundaries  of  their  possessions,  let  a 


234  TRIALS   AND   TROOFS   OF  GUILT 

piece  of  turf  of  the  contested  land  be  dng  up  by  the  judge, 
and  brought  by  him  into  the  court ;  the  two  parties  shall 
touch  it  with  the  points  of  their  swords,  calling  on  God  as  a 
witness  of  their  claims  ; — after  this  let  them  combat,  and  let 
victory  decide  on  their  rights  !  " 

In  Germany,  a  solemn  circumstance  was  practised  in  these 
judicial  combats.  In  the  midst  of  the  lists  they  placed  a 
bier. — By  its  side  stood  the  accuser  and  the  accused ;  one  at 
the  head  and  the  other  at  the  foot  of  the  bier,  and  leaned 
there  for  some  time  in  pi'ofound  silence,  before  they  began 
the  combat. 

The  manners  of  the  age  are  faithfully  painted  in  the  ancient 
Fabliaux.  The  judicial  combat  is  introduced  by  a  writer  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  in  a  scene  where  Pilate  challenges 
Jesus  Christ  to  single  combat.  Another  describes  the  person 
who  pierced  the  side  of  Christ  as  a  knight  who  jousted  with 
Jesus. 

Judicial  combat  appears  to  have  been  practised  by  the 
Jews.  Whenever  the  rabbins  had  to  decide  on  a  dispute 
about  property  between  two  parties,  neither  of  which  could 
pi-oduce  evidence  to  substantiate  his  claim,  they  terminated  it 
by  single  combat.  The  rabbins  were  impressed  by  a  notion, 
that  consciousness  of  right  would  give  additional  confidence 
and  strength  to  the  rightful  possessor.  It  may,  however,  be 
more  philosophical  to  observe,  that  such  judicial  combats 
were  more  frequently  favorable  to  the  criminal  than  to  the 
innocent,  because  the  bold  wicked  man  is  usually  more  fero- 
cious and  hardy  than  he  whom  he  singles  out  as  his  victim, 
and  who  only  wishes  to  preserve  his  own  quiet  enjoyment : — 
in  this  case  the  assailant  is  the  more  terrible  combatant. 

Those  accused  of  robbery  were  put  to  trial  by  a  piece 
of  barley-bread,  on  which  the  mass  had  been  said  ;  which,  if 
they  could  not  swallow,  they  were  declared  guilty.  This 
mode  of  trial  was  improved  by  adding  to  the  bread  a  shce  of 
cheese  ;  and  such  was  their  credulity,  that  they  were  very 
pai'ticular   in  this  holy  bread  and  cheese,  called  the  corsned. 


IN    SUPERSTITIOUS   AGES.  235 

The  bread  was   to  be  of  unleavened  barley,  and  the  cheese 
made  of  ewe's  milk  in  the  month  of  Mux. 

Du  Cange  observed,  that  the  expression — "  3fat/  (his  piece 
of  bread  choke  me !  "  comes  from  this  custom.  The  anec- 
dote of  Earl  Godwin's  death  by  swallowing  a  piece  of  bread, 
in  making  this  asseveration,  is  recorded  in  our  history. 
Doubtless  superstition  would  often  terrify  the  innocent  per- 
son, in  the  attempt  of  swallowing  a  consecrated  morsel. 

Among  the  proofs  of  guilt  in  superstitious  ages  was  that  of 
the  bleeding  of  a  corpse.  It  was  believed,  that  at  the  touch 
or  approach  of  the  murderer  the  blood  gushed  out  of  the 
murdered.  By  the  side  of  the  bier,  if  the  slightest  change 
was  observable  in  the  eyes,  the  mouth,  feet,  or  hands  of  the 
corpse,  the  murderer  was  conjectured  to  be  present,  and 
many  innocent  spectators  must  have  suffered  death.  "  When 
a  body  is  full  of  blood,  warmed  by  a  sudden  external  heat 
and  a  putrefaction  coming  on,  some  of  the  blood-vessels  will 
burst,  as  they  will  all  in  time."  This  practice  was  once  al- 
lowed in  Pvugland,  and  is  still  looked  on  in  some  of  the  unciv- 
ilized parts  of  these  kingdoms  as  a  detection  of  the  criminal. 
It  forms  a  solemn  picture  in  the  histories  and  ballads  of  our 
old  writers. 

Kobertson  observes,  that  all  these  absurd  institutions  were 
cherished  from  the  superstitious  of  the  age  believing  the 
legendary  histories  of  those  saints,  who  ciowd  and  disgrace 
the  Roman  calendar.  These  fabulous  miracles  had  been  de- 
clared authentic  by  the  bulls  of  the  popes  and  the  decrees  of 
councils ;  they  were  greedily  swallowed  by  the  populace  ; 
and  whoever  believed  that  the  Supreme  Being  had  inter- 
posed miraculously  on  those  trivial  occasions  mentioned  in 
legends,  could  not  but  expect  the  intervention  of  Heaven  in 
tliese  most  solemn  appeals.  These  customs  were  a  substitute 
for  written  laws,  which  that  barbarous  period  had  not ;  and 
as  no  society  can  exist  without  laws,  the  ignorance  of  the 
people  had  recourse  to  these  customs,  which,  evil  and  absurd 
as  they  were,  closed  endless  controversies.     Ordeals  are  in 


236  TRIALS   AND   TROOFS   OF    GUILT 

truth  the  rude  laws  of  a  barbarous  people  who  have  not  yet 
obtained  a  written  code,  and  are  not  sufficiently  advanced  in 
civilization  to  enter  into  the  refined  inquiries,  the  subtile  dis- 
tinctions, and  elaborate  investigations,  which  a  court  of  law 
demands. 

These  ordeals  probably  originate  in  that  one  of  Moses 
called  the  "  Waters  of  Jealousy."  The  Greeks  likewise  had 
ordeals,  for  in  the  Antigonus  of  Sophocles,  the  soldiers  offer 
to  prove  their  innocence  by  handling  red-hot  iron,  and  walk- 
ing between  fires.  One  cannot  but  smile  at  the  whimsical 
ordeals  of  the  Siamese.  Among  other  practices  to  discover 
the  justice  of  a  cause,  civil  or  criminal,  they  are  particularly 
attached  to  using  certain  consecrated  purgative  pills,  which 
they  make  the  contending  parties  swallow.  lie  who  retains 
them  longest  gains  his  cause  !  The  practice  of  giving  In- 
dians a  consecrated  grain  of  rice  to  swallow  is  known  to  dis- 
cover the  thief,  in  any  company,  by  the  contortions  and  dis- 
may evident  on  the  countenance  of  the  real  thief. 

In  the  middle  ages,  they  were  acquainted  with  secrets  to 
pass  unhurt  these  singular  trials.  Voltaire  mentions  one  for 
undergoing  the  ordeal  of  boiling  water.  Our  late  travellers 
in  the  East  have  confirmed  this  statement.  The  Mevleheh 
dervises  can  hold  red-hot  iron  between  their  teeth.  Such 
artifices  have  been  often  publicly  exhibited  at  Paris  and 
London.  Mr.  Sharon  Turner  observes  on  the  ordeal  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  that  the  hand  was  not  to  be  immediately 
inspected,  and  was  left  to  the  chance  of  a  good  constitution 
to  be  so  far  healed  during  three  days  (the  time  they  required 
to  be  bound  up  and  sealed,  before  it  was  examined)  as  to 
discover  those  appearances  when  inspected,  which  were 
allowed  to  be  satisfixctory.  There  was  likewise  much  pre- 
paratory training,  suggested  by  the  more  experienced ;  be- 
sides, the  accused  had  an  opportunity  of  going  alone  into  the 
chnrch,  and  making  terms  with  the  priest.  The  few  specta- 
tors were  always  distant  ;  and  cold  iron  might  be  substituted, 
and  the  fire  diminished,  at  the  moment. 


IN   SUPERSTITIOUS  AGES.  237 

They  possessed  secrets  and  medicaments,  to  pass  through 
these  trials  in  perfect  security.  An  anecdote  of  these  times 
may  serve  to  show  their  readiness.  A  rivalship  existed  be- 
tween the  Austin-friars  and  the  Jesuits.  The  father-general 
of  the  Austin-friars  was  dining  with  the  Jesuits ;  and  wlien 
the  table  was  removed,  he  entered  into  a  formal  discourse  of 
the  superiority  of  the  monastic  order,  and  charged  the  Jes- 
uits, in  unqualitied  terms,  with  assuming  the  title  of  "  fratres," 
while  they  held  not  the  three  vows,  which  other  monks  were 
obliged  to  consider  as  sacred  and  binding.  The  general  of 
the  Austin-friars  was  very  eloquent  and  very  authoritative  : — 
and  the  superior  of  the  Jesuits  was  very  unlearned,  but  not 
half  a  fool. 

The  Jesuit  avoided  entering  the  list  of  controversy  with 
the  Austin-friar,  but  arrested  his  triumph  by  asking  him  if 
he  would  see  one  of  his  friars,  who  pretended  to  be  nothing 
more  than  a  Jesuit,  and  one  of  the  Austin-friars  who  relig- 
iously performed  the  aforesaid  three  vows,  show  instantly 
which  of  them  would  be  the  readier  to  obey  his  superiors  ? 
The  Austin-friar  consented.  The  Jesuit  then  turning  to  one 
of  his  brothers,  the  holy  friar  Mark,  who  was  waiting  on 
them,  said,  "  Brother  Mark,  our  companions  are  cold.  I 
command  you,  in  virtue  of  the  holy  obedience  you  have 
sworn  to  me,  to  bring  here  instantly  out  of  the  kitchen-fire, 
and  in  your  hands,  some  burning  coals,  that  they  may  warm 
themselves  over  your  hands."  Father  Mark  instantly  obeys, 
and  to  the  astonishment  of  the  Austin-friar,-  brought  in  his 
hands  a  supply  of  red  burning  coals,  and  held  them  to  who- 
ever chose  to  warm  himself;  and  at  the  command  of  his  su- 
perior returned  them  to  the  kitchen-hearth.  The  general  of 
the  Austin-friars,  with  the  rest  of  his  brotherhood,  stood 
amazed ;  he  looked  wistfully  on  one  of  his  monks,  as  if  he 
wished  to  command  him  to  do  the  like.  But  the  Austin- 
monk,  who  perfectly  understood  him,  and  saw  this  was  not  a 
time  to  hesitate,  observed, — "Reverend  father,  forbear,  and 
do  not  command   me  to  tempt  God !     I  am   ready  to  fetch 


238  INQUISITION. 

you  fire  in  a  chafing-dish,  but  not  in  my  bare  hands."  Tha 
triumph  of  the  Jesuits  was  complete  ;  and  it  is  not  necessary 
to  add,  tliat  the  miracle  was  noised  about,  and  that  the  Aus- 
tin-friars could  never  account  for  it,  notwithstanding  their 
strict  performance  of  the  three  vows  ! 


INQUISITION. 

Innocent  the  Third,  a  pope  as  enterprising  as  he  was 
successful  in  his  enterprises,  having  sent  Dominic  with  some 
missionaries  into  Languedoc,  these  men  so  irritated  the  here- 
tics they  were  sent  to  convert,  that  most  of  them  were  assas- 
sinated at  Toulouse  in  the  year  1200.  He  called  in  the  aid 
of  temporal  ai-ms,  and  published  against  them  a  crusade, 
granting,  as  was  usual  Avith  the  popes  on  similar  occasions, 
all  kinds  of  indulgences  and  pardons  to  those  who  should  arm 
against  these  Mahometans,  so  he  styled  these  unfortunate 
Languedocians.  Once  all  were  Turks  when  they  were  not 
Romanists.  Raymond,  Count  of  Toulouse,  was  constrained 
to  submit.  The  inhabitants  were  passed  on  the  edge  of  the 
sword,  without  distinction  of  age  or  sex.  It  was  then  he 
established  that  scourge  of  Europe,  The  Inquisition.  This 
pope  considered  that,  though  men  might  be  compelled  to 
submit  by  arms,  numbers  might  remain  professing  partic- 
ular dogmas ;  and  he  established  this  sanguinary  tribunal 
solely  to  inspect  into  all  families,  and  inquire  concerning 
all  persons  who  they  imagined  were  unfriendly  to  the  inter- 
ests of  Rome.  Dominic  did  so  much  by  his  persecuting  in- 
quiries, that  he  firmly  established  the  Inquisition  at  Toulouse. 

KiDt  before  the  year  1484  it  became  known  in  Spain.  To 
another  Dominican,  John  de  Torquemada,  the  court  of  Rome 
owed  this  obligation.  As  he  was  the  confessor  of  Queen  Isa- 
bella, he  had  extorted  from  her  a  promise  that  if  ever  she 
ascended  the  throne,  she  would  use  every  means  to  extirpate 
heresy   and  heretics.     Ferdinand  had  conquered    Granada, 


INQUISITION.  239 

and  had  expelled  from  the  Spanish  realms  multitudes  of  un- 
fortunate Moors.  A  few  remained,  whom,  with  the  Jews,  he 
compelled  to  become  Christians  :  they  at  least  assumed  the 
name  ;  but  it  was  well  known  that  both  these  nations  natur- 
ally respected  their  own  faith,  rather  than  that  of  the  Chris- 
tians. This  race  was  afterwards  distinguished  as  Christianos 
Novos  ;  and  in  forming  marriages,  the  blood  of  the  Hidaliro 
was  considered  to  lose  its  purity  by  mingling  with  such  a  sus- 
picious source. 

Torquemada  pretended  that  this  dissimulation  would 
greatly  hurt  the  interests  of  the  holy  religion.  The  queen 
listened  with  respectful  diffidence  to  her  confessor ;  and  at 
length  gained  over  the  king  to  consent  to  the  establishment  of 
this  unrelenting  tribunal.  Torquemada,  indefatigable  in  his 
zeal  for  the  holy  chair,  in  the  space  of  fourteen  years  that  he 
exercised  the  office  of  chief  inquisitor,  is  said  to  have  prose- 
cuted near  eighty  thousand  persons,  of  whom  six  thousand 
were  condemned  to  the  flames. 

Voltaire  attributes  the  taciturnity  of  the  Spaniards  to  the 
universal  horror  such  proceedings  spread.  "A  general  jeal- 
ousy and  suspicion  took  possession  of  all  ranks  of  people : 
friendship  and  sociability  were  at  an  end!  Brothers  were 
afraid  of  brothers,  fathers  of  their  children." 

The  situation  and  the  feelings  of  one  imprisoned  in  the 
cells  of  the  Inquisition  are  forcibly  painted  by  Orobio,  a  mild, 
and  meek,  and  learned  man,  whose  controversy  with  Lim- 
borch  is  wl41  known.  When  he  escaped  from  Spain  he  took 
refuge  in  Holland,  was  circumcised,  and  died  a  philosophical 
Jew.  He  has  left  this  admirable  description  of  himself  in 
the  cell  of  the  Inquisition.  "  Inclosed  in  this  dungeon  I 
could  not  even  find  space  enough  to  turn  myself  about ;  I 
suffiired  so  much  that  I  felt  my  brain  disordered.  I  fre- 
quently asked  myself,  am  I  really  Don  Balthazar  Orobio, 
who  used  to  walk  about  Seville  at  my  pleasure,  who  so 
greatly  enjoyed  myself  with  my  wife  and  children  ?  I 
often  imagined  that  all  my  life  had  only  been  a  dream,  and 


240  mqUISITION. 

that  I  really  had  been  born  in  this  dungeon!  The  only 
amusement  I  could  invent  was  metaphysical  disputations.  I 
was  at  once  opponent,  respondent,  and  praeses  !  " 

In  the  cathedral  at  Saragossa  is  the  tomb  of  a  famous  in- 
quisitor ;  six  pillars  surround  this  tomb  ;  to  each  is  chained 
a  Moor,  as  preparatory  to  his  being  burnt.  On  this  St.  Foix 
ingeniously  observes,  "  If  ever  the  Jack  Ketch  of  any  country 
sliould  be  rich  enough  to  have  a  splendid  tomb,  this  might 
serve  as  an  excellent  model." 

The  Inquisition  punished  heretics  by  fire,  to  elude  the 
maxim,  "  Ecclesia  non  novit  sanguinem ; "  for  burning  a 
man,  say  they,  does  not  shed  his  blood.  Otho,  the  bishop  at 
the  Norman  invasion,  in  the  tapestry  worked  by  Matilda  the 
queen  of  William  the  Conqueror,  is  represented  with  a  mace 
in  liis  hand,  for  the  purpose  that  when  he  despatched  his  an- 
tagonist he  might  not  spill  blood,  but  only  break  his  bones! 
Religion  has  had  her  quibbles  as  well  as  law. 

The  establishment  of  this  despotic  order  was  resisted  in 
France ;  but  it  may  perhaps  surprise  the  reader  that  a  recor- 
der of  London,  in  a  speech,  urged  the  necessity  of  setting  up 
an  Inquisition  in  England !  It  was  on  the  trial  of  Penn  the 
Quaker,  in  1670,  who  was  acquitted  by  the  jury,  which  highly 
provoked  the  said  recorder.  "  Magna  Charta,"  writes  the 
prefacer  to  the  trial,  "  with  the  recorder  of  London,  is  noth- 
ing more  than  Magna  F !  "     It  appears  that  the  jury, 

after  being  kept  two  days  and  two  nights  to  alter  their  ver- 
dict, were  in  the  end  both  fined  and  imprisoned.  Sir  John 
Howell,  the  recorder,  said,  "  Till  now  I  never  understood  the 
reason  of  the  policy  and  prudence  of  the  Spaniards  in  suffer- 
ing the  Inquisition  among  them  ;  and  certainly  it  will  not  be 
well  with  us,  till  something  like  unto  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
be  in  England."  Thus  it  will  ever  be,  while  both  parties 
struggling  for  the  preeminence  rush  to  the  sharp  extremity  of 
things,  and  annihilate  the  trembling  balance  of  the  constitu- 
tion. But  the  adopted  motto  of  Lord  Erskine  must  ever  be 
that  of  every  Briton,  "  Trial  by  Jury" 


INQUISITION.  241 

So  late  as  the  year  17G1,  Gabriel  Malagrida,  an  old  man 
of  seventy,  was  burnt  by  these  evangelical  executioners.  His 
trial  was  printed  at  Amsterdam,  1762,  from  the  Lisbon  copy. 
And  for  what  was  this  unhappy  Jesuit  condemned  ?  Not,  fi3 
some  have  imagined,  for  his  having  been  concerned  in  a  con- 
spiracy against  the  king  of  Portugal.  No  other  charge  is 
laid  to  him  in  this  trial  but  that  of  having  indulged  certain 
heretical  notions,  which  any  other  tril)unal  but  that  of  the 
Inquisition  would  have  looked  upon  as  the  delirious  fancies 
of  a  fanatical  old  man.  Will  posterity  believe,  that  in  the 
eighteenth  century  an  aged  visionary  was  led  to  the  stake  for 
having  said,  amongst  other  extravagances,  that  "  The  holy 
Virgin  having  commanded  him  to  write  the  life  of  Anti- 
Christ,  told  him  that  he,  Malagrida,  was  a  second  John,  but 
more  clear  than  John  the  Evangelist ;  that  there  were  to  be 
three  Anti-Christs,  and  that  the  last  should  be  born  at  Milan, 
of  a  monk  and  a  nun,  in  the  year  1920  ;  and  that  he  would 
marry  Proserpine,  one  of  the  infernal  furies." 

For  such  ravings  as  these  the  unhappy  old  man  was  burnt 
in  recent  times.  Granger  assures  us,  that  in  his  remem- 
brance a  horse  that  had  been  taught  to  tell  the  spots  upon 
cards,  the  hour  of  the  day,  &c.  by  significant  tokens,  was,  to- 
gether with  his  owner,  put  into  the  Inquisition  for  both  of 
them  dealing  with  the  devil !  A  man  of  letters  declared  that, 
having  fallen  into  their  hands,  nothing  perplexed  him  so  much 
as  the  ignorance  of  the  inquisitor  and  his  council :  and  it 
seem(id  very  doubtful  whether  they  had  read  even  the  scrip- 
tures. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  anecdotes  relating  to  the  ter- 
rible Inquisition,  exemplifying  how  the  use  of  the  diabolical 
engines  of  torture  forces  men  to  confess  crimes  they  have  not 
been  guilty  of,  was  related  to  me  by  a  Portuguese  gentleman. 

A  nobleman  in  Lisbon  having  heard  that  his  physician  and 
friend  was  imprisoned  by  the  Inquisition,  under  the  stale  pre- 
text of  Judaism,  addressed  a  letter  to  one  of  them  to  request 
his  freedom,  assuring  the  inquisitor  that  his   friend   was  as 

VOL.   I.  16 


242  INQXnSITION. 

orthodox  a  Christian  as  himself.  The  physician,  notwith- 
standing this  high  recommendation,  was  put  to  the  torture  ; 
and,  as  was  usually  the  case,  at  the  height  of  his  sufferings 
confessed  everything  they  wished  !  This  enraged  the  noble- 
man, and  feigning  a  dangerous  illness  he  begged  the  inquisitor 
would  come  to  give  him  his  last  spiritual  aid. 

As  soon  as  the  Dominican  arrived,  the  lord,  who  had  pre- 
pared his  confidential  servants,  commanded  the  inquisitor  in 
their  presence  to  acknowledge  himself  a  Jew,  to  write  his 
confession,  and  to  sign  it.  On  the  refusal  of  the  inquisitor, 
the  nobleman  ordered  his  people  to  put  on  the  inquisitor's 
head  a  red-hot  helmet,  which  to  his  astonishment,  in  drawing 
aside  a  screen,  he  beheld  glowing  in  a  small  furnace.  At  the 
sight  of  this  new  instrument  of  torture,  "  Luke's  iron  crown," 
the  monk  wrote  and  subscribed  ihe  abhorred  confession.  The 
nobleman  then  observed,  "  See  now  the  enormity  of  your 
manner  of  proceeding  with  unhappy  men !  My  poor  physi- 
cian, like  you,  has  confessed  Judaism ;  but  with  this  differ- 
ence, only  torments  have  forced  that  from  him  which  fear 
alone  has  drawn  from  you  !  " 

The  Inquisition  has  not  failed  of  receiving  its  due  praises. 
Macedo,  a  Portuguese  Jesuit,  has  discovered  the  "  Origin  of 
the  Inquisition  "  in  the  terrestrial  Paradise,  and  presumes  to 
allege  that  God  was  the  first  who  began  the  functions  of  an 
inquisitor  over  Cain  and  the  workmen  of  Babel !  Macedo, 
how^ever,  is  not  so  dreaming  a  personage  as  he  appears  ;  for 
he  obtained  a  Professor's  chair  at  Padua  for  the  arguments 
he  delivered  at  Venice  against  the  pope,  which  were  pub- 
lished by  the  title  of  "  The  literary  Roarings  of  the  Lion  at 
St.  Mark ;"  besides,  he  is  the  author  of  101)  different  works; 
but  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  far  our  interest  is  apt  to  pre- 
vail over  our  conscience, — Macedo  praised  the  Inquisition  up 
to  the  skies,  while  he  sank  the  pope  to  nothing ! 

Among  the  great  revolutions  of  this  age,  and  since  the  last 
edition  of  this  work,  the  Inquisition  in  Spain  and  Portugal  is 
abohshed — but  its  history  enters  into  that  of  the  human  mind ; 


SINGULARITIES  IN  REPASTS.  243 

and  the  history  of  the  Inquisition  by  Limborch,  translated  by 
Chandler,  with  a  very  curious  "  Introduction,"  loses  none  ol" 
its  value  witii  the  philosophical  mind.  Tliis  monstrous  tri- 
bunal of  human  opinions  aimed  at  the  sovereignty  of  the 
intellectual  world,  without  intellect. 

In  these  changeful  times,  the  history  of  the  Inquisition  is 
not  the  least  mutable.  The  Inquisition,  which  was  abolished, 
was  again  restored — and  at  the  present  moment,  I  know  not 
whether  it  is  to  be  restored  or  aboUshed. 


SINGULARITIES   0BSP:RVED  BY  VARIOUS  NATIONS 
IN  THEIR  REPASTS. 

TriE  Maldivian  islanders  eat  alone.  They  retire  into  the 
most  hidden  parts  of  their  houses  ;  and  they  di-aw  down  the 
cloths  that  serve  as  blinds  to  their  windows,  that  they  may 
eat  unobserved.  This  custom  probably  arises  from  the 
savage,  in  early  periods  of  society,  concealing  himself  to 
eat :  he  fears  that  another,  with  as  sharp  an  appetite,  but 
more  strong  than  himself,  should  come  and  ravish  his  meal 
from  him.  Tlie  ideas  of  witchcraft  are  also  widely  spread 
among  barbarians ;  and  they  are  not  a  little  fearful  that 
some  incantation  may  be  thrown  among  their  victuals. 

In  noticing  the  solitary  meal  of  the  Maldivian  islander, 
another  reason  may  be  alleged  for  this  misanthropical  repast. 
They  never  wiU  eat  with  any  one  who  is  inferior  to  them  in 
birth,  in  riches,  or  dignity  ;  and  as  it  is  a  difficult  matter  to 
settle  this  equality,  they  are  condemned  to  lead  this  unsocial 
life. 

On  the  contrary,  the  islanders  of  the  Pliilippines  are  re- 
markably social.  AVhenever  one  of  them  finds  himself  with- 
out a  companion  to  partake  of  his  meal,  he  runs  till  he  meets 
with  one  ;  and  we  are  assured  that,  however  keen  his  appetite 
may  be,  he  ventures  not  to  satisfy  it  without  a  guest. 


244  SINGULARITIES    OF  NATIONS 

Savages,  says  Montaigne,  when  they  eat,  "  S'essuyent  Us 
doigts  mix  cuisses,  a  la  bourse  des  genitoires,  et  a  la  plante 
des  pieds"  We  cannot  forbear  exulting  in  the  poUshed  con- 
venience of  napkins  ! 

The  tables  of  the  rich  Chinese  shine  with  a  beautiful  var- 
nish, and  ai'e  covered  with  silk  carpets  very  elegantly  worked. 
They  do  not  make  use  of  plates,  knives,  and  forks  :  every 
guest  has  two  little  ivory  or  ebony  sticks,  which  he  handles 
very  adroitly. 

The  Otaheiteans,  who  are  naturally  social,  and  very  gentle 
in  their  manners,  feed  separately  from  each  other.  At  the 
hour  of  repast,  the  members  of  each  family  di^^de ;  two 
brothers,  two  sisters,  and  even  husband  and  wife,  father  and 
mother,  have  each  then*  respective  basket.  They  place 
themselves  at  the  distance  of  two  or  three  yards  from 
each  other ;  they  turn  their  backs,  and  take  their  meal 
in  profound  silence. 

The  custom  of  drinking  at  different  hours  from  those 
assigned  for  eating,  exists  among  many  savage  nations* 
Originally  begun  from  necessity,  it  became  a  habit,  which 
subsisted  even  when  the  fountain  was  near  to  them.  A 
people  transplanted,  observes  an  ingenious  philosopher,  pre- 
serve in  another  climate  modes  of  hving  which  relate  to 
those  from  whence  they  originally  came.  It  is  thus  the 
Indians  of  Brazil  scrupulously  abstain  from  eating  when 
Ihey  drink,  and  from  drinking  when  they  eat.* 

^Ylien  neither  decency  nor  politeness  is  known,  the  man 
\?ho  invites  his  friends  to  a  repast  is  greatly  embarrassed  to 
testify  his  esteem  for  his  guests,  and  to  offer  them  some 
amusement ;  for  the  savage  guest  imposes  on  hunself  this 
obligation.  Amongst  the  greater  part  of  the  American 
Indians,  the  host  is  continually  on  the  watch  .to  solicit  them 
to  eat,  but  touches  nothing  himself.  In  New  France,  he 
wearies  liimself  with  singing,  to  divert  the  company  while 
they  eat. 

*  Esprit  des  L'sages,  et  des  Coutumes. 


m  THEIR  REPASTS.  245 

When  civilization  advances,  men  wish  to  show  their  confi- 
dence to  their  friends  :  tiiey  treat  their  guests  as  relations  ; 
and  it  is  said  that  in  China  the  master  of"  a  house,  to  give  a 
mark  of  his  politeness,  absents  himself  while  his  guests  regale 
themselves  at  his  table  with  undisturbed  revelry. 

The  demonstrations  of  friendship  in  a  rude  state  have  a 
savage  and  gross  character,  which  it  is  not  a  little  curious  to 
observe.  The  Tartars  pull  a  man  by  the  ear  to  press  him 
to  drink,  and  they  continue  tonnenting  him  till  he  opens  liia 
mouth,  then  they  clap  their  hands  and  dance  before  him. 

No  customs  seem  more  ridiculous  than  those  practised  by 
a  Kamschatkan,  when  he  wishes  to  make  another  his  friend. 
He  first  invites  him  to  eat.  The  host  and  his  guest  strip 
themselves  in  a  cabin  which  is  heated  to  an  uncommon  de- 
gree. While  the  guest  devours  the  food  with  which  they 
serve  him,  the  other  continually  stu*s  the  fire.  The  stranger 
must  bear  the  excess  of  the  heat  as  well  as  of  the  repast. 
He  vomits  ten  times  before  he  will  yield  ;  but,  at  length 
obliged  to  acknowledge  himself  overcome,  he  begins  to 
compound  matters.  He  purchases  a  moment's  respite  by 
a  present  of  clothes  or  dogs  ;  for  his  host  tlu'eatens  to  heat 
the  cabin,  and  oblige  him  to  eat  till  he  dies.  The  stranger 
has  the  right  of  retaliation  allowed  to  him :  he  treats  in  the 
same  manner,  and  exacts  the  same  presents.  Should  his 
host  not  accept  the  mvitation  of  liim  whom  he  had  so  hand- 
somely regaled,  in  that  case  the  guest  would  take  possession 
of  his  cabin,  till  he  had  the  presents  returned  to  him  which 
the  other  had  in  so  singular  a  manner  obtained. 

For  this  extravagant  custom  a  curious  reason  has  been 
alleged.  It  is  meant  to  put  the  person  to  a  trial,  whose 
friendship  is  sought.  The  Kamschadale,  who  is  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  fires,  and  the  repast,  is  desirous  to  know  if  the 
stranger  has  the  strength  to  support  pain  with  him,  and  if  he 
is  generous  enough  to  share  with  him  some  part  of  his  prop- 
erty. AVhile  the  guest  is  employed  on  his  meal,  he  continues 
heating  the  cabin  to  an  insupportable  degree  ;   and  for  a  last 


246  MONARCHS. 

proof  of  the  stranger's  constancy  and  attachment,  he  exacts 
more  clothes  and  more  dogs.  The  host  passes  through  the 
same  ceremonies  in  the  cabin  of  the  stranger  ;  and  he  shows, 
in  his  turn,  with  what  degree  of  fortitude  he  can  defend  his 
friend.  The  most  singular  customs  would  appear  simple,  if 
it  were  possible  for  the  philosopher  to  understand  them  on 
the  spot. 

As  a  distinguishing  mark  of  their  esteem,  the  negroes  of 
Ardra  drink  out  of  one  cup  at  the  same  time.  The  king  of 
Loango  eats  in  one  house,  and  drinks  in  another.  A  Kara- 
schatkan  kneels  before  his  guests  ;  he  cuts  an  enormous  slice 
from  a  sea-calf;  he  crams  it  entire  into  the  mouth  of  his 
friend,  furiously  crying  out  "  Tana!  " — There  !  and  cutting 
away  what  hangs  about  his  lips,  snatches  and  swallows  it 
with  avidity. 

A  barbarous  magnificence  attended  the  feasts  of  the  an- 
cient monarchs  of  France.  After  their  coronation  or  conse- 
cration, Avhen  they  sat  at  table,  the  nobihty  served  them  on 
horseback. 


MONARCHS. 

Saint  Ciirysostom  has  this  very  acute  observation  on 
kings :  many  monarchs  are  infected  with  a  strange  wish  that 
their  successors  may  turn  out  bad  princes.  Good  kings 
desire  it,  as  they  imagine,  continues  this  pious  pohtician,  that 
their  glory  will  appear  the  more  splendid  by  the  contrast ; 
and  the  bad  desire  it,  as  they  consider  such  kings  will  serve 
to  countenance  their  own  misdemeanors. 

Princes,  says  Gracian,  are  willing  to  be  aided,  but  not 
surpassed:  which  maxim  is  thus  illustrated. 

A  Spanish  lord  having  frequently  played  at  chess  with 
Philip  II.,  and  won  all  the  games,  perceived,  when  his 
majesty  rose  from  play,  that  he  was  much  ruffled  with 
chagrin.      The   loi-d,   when   he  returned   home,   said   to  his 


MONARCHS.  217 

family, — "My  chUdren,  we  have  nothing  more  to  do  at 
court:  there  we  must  expect  no  favour;  for  the  king  is 
offended  at  my  having  won  of  him  every  game  of  chess." — 
As  chess  entirely  depends  on  the  genius  of  the  players,  and 
not  on  fortune,  King  Philip  the  chess-player  conceived  he 
ought  to  suffer  no  rival. 

Tliis  appears  still  clearer  by  the  anecdote  told  of  the  Earl 
of  Sunderland,  minister  to  George  I.,  who  was  partial  to  the 
game  of  chess.  He  once  played  with  the  Laird  of  Cluny, 
and  the  learned  Cunningham,  the  editor  of  Horace.  Cun- 
ningham, with  too  much  skill  and  too  much  sincerity,  beat 
his  lordship.  "The  earl  was  so  fretted  at  his  superiority 
and  surUness,  that  he  dismissed  him  without  any  reward. 
Cluny  allowed  himself  sometimes  to  be  beaten ;  and  by  that 
means  got  his  pardon,  with  something  handsome  besides." 

In  the  Criticon  of  Gracian,  there  is  a  singular  anecdote 
relative  to  kings. 

A  Polish  monarch  having  quitted  his  companions  when  he 
was  hunting,  his  courtiers  found  him,  a  few  days  after,  in  a 
market-place,  disguised  as  a  porter,  and  lending  out  the  use 
of  his  shouldei-s  for  a  few  pence.  At  this  they  were  as  much 
surprised  as  they  were  doubtful  at  first  whether  the  porter 
could  be  his  majesty.  At  length  they  ventured  to  express 
their  complaints  that  so  great  a  personage  should  debase 
hunself  by  so  vile  an  employment.  His  majesty  having 
heard  them,  rephed,  "  Upon  my  honour,  gentlemen,  the  load 
which  I  quitted  is  by  far  heavier  than  the  one  you  see  me 
carry  here  :  the  weightiest  is  but  a  straw,  when  compared  to 
that  world  under  which  I  laboured.  I  have  slept  more  in 
foul  nights  than  I  have  during  all  my  reign.  I  begin  to 
live,  and  to  be  king  of  myself.  Elect  whom  you  choose. 
For  me,  who  am  so  well,  it  were  madness  to  return  to  court" 
Another  Pohsh  king,  who  succeeded  this  philosophic  mo- 
narchical porter,  when  they  placed  the  sceptre  in  his  liand, 
exclaimed, — "  I  had  rather  tug  at  an  oar  !  "  The  vacillating 
fortunes  of  the    Polish  monarchy  present  several  of  these 


248  MONARCHS. 

anecdotes  ;  their  monarchs  appear  to  have  frequently  been 
philosophers ;  and,  as  the  world  is  made,  an  excellent  philos- 
opher proves  but  an  indifferent  king. 

Two  observations  on  kings  were  offered  to  a  courtier  with 
great  naivete  by  that  experienced  politician  the  Duke  of 
Alva. — "  Kings  who  affect  to  be  familiar  with  their  com- 
panions make  use  of  men  as  they  do  of  oranges  ;  they  take 
oranges  to  extract  their  juice ;  and  when  they  are  well 
sucked  they  thi'ow  them  away.  Take  care  the  king  does  not 
do  the  same  to  you  ;  be  careful  that  he  does  not  read  all 
your  thoughts ;  otherwise  he  will  throw  you  aside  to  the  back 
of  his  chest,  as  a  book  of  which  he  has  read  enough."  "  The 
squeezed  orange,"  the  king  of  Prussia  applied  in  liis  dispute 
with  Voltaire. 

When  it  was  suggested  to  Dr.  Johnson  that  kings  must 
be  unhappy  because  they  are  deprived  of  the  greatest  of  all 
satisfactions,  easy  and  unreserved  society,  he  observed  that 
this  was  an  ill-founded  notion.  "  Being  a  king  does  not  ex- 
clude a  man  from  such  society.  Great  kings  have  always 
been  social.  The  king  of  Prussia,  the  only  great  king  at, 
present  (this  was  the  great  Frederic)  is  veiy  social. 
Charles  the  Second,  the  last  king  of  England  who  was  a  man 
of  parts,  was  social ;  our  Henries  and  Edwards  were  all 
social." 

The  Marquis  of  Hahfax,  in  his  character  of  Charles  II., 
has  exhibited  a  trait  in  the  royal  (.'haracter  of  a  good-natured 
monarch ;  that  trait,  is  sauntering.  I  transcribe  this  curious 
observation,  which  introduces  us  into  a  levee. 

"  There  was  as  much  of  laziness  as  of  love  in  all  those 
hours  which  he  passed  amongst  his  mistresses,  who  served 
only  to  fill  up  his  seraglio,  w'hile  a  bewitching  kind  of  pleas- 
ure, called  SAUNTERING,  was  the  sultana  queen  he  de- 
lighted in. 

"  The  thing  called  sauntering  is  a  stronger  temptation  to 
princes  than  it  is  to  others. — The  being  galled  with  impor- 
tunities, pursued  from  one  room  to  another  with  asking  faces ; 


OF  THE  TITLES  OF  ILLUSTEIOUS,  mCIIXESS,  ETC.     249 

the  dismal  sound  of  unreasonable  complaints  and  ill-grounded 
pretences;  the  deformity  of  fraud  ill-disguised: — all  these 
would  make  any  man  run  away  from  them,  and  I  used  to 
think  it  was  the  motive  for  making  him  walk  so  fast." 


OF  THE  TITLES  OF  ILLUSTRIOUS,  HIGHNESS,  AND 
EXCELLENCE. 

The  title  of  illustrious  was  never  given,  till  the  reign  of 
Constantine,  but  to  those  whose  rt^Dutation  was  splendid  in 
arms  or  in  letters.  Adulation  had  not  yet  adopted  this  noble 
word  into  her  vocabulary.  Suetonius  composed  a  book  to 
record  those  who  had  possessed  this  title  ;  and,  as  it  was  then 
bestowed,  a  moderate  volume  Avas  sutficient  to  contain  their 
names. 

In  the  time  of  Constantine,  the  title  of  illustrious  was  given 
more  particularly  to  those  princes  who  had  distinguished 
themselves  in  war ;  but  it  was  not  continued  to  their  descend- 
ants. At  length,  it  became  very  common  ;  and  every  son 
of  a  prince  was  illustrious.  It  is  now  a  convenient  epithet 
for  the  J)oet. 

In  the  rage  for  titles  the  ancient  la^vyers  in  Italy  Avere 
not  satisfied  by  calling  kings  Illustres  ;  they  went  a  step 
higher,  and  would  have  emperors  to  be  super-illustres,  a 
barbarous  coinage  of  their  ow^n. 

In  Spain,  they  published  a  book  of  titles  for  their  kings,  as 
wcU  as  for  the  Portuguese ;  but  Selden  tells  us,  that  "  their 
Cortesias  and  giving  of  titles  grew  at  length,  through  the 
affectation  of  heaping  great  attributes  on  their  princen,  to 
such  an  insufferable  forme,  that  a  remedie  was  provided 
against  it."  This  remedy  was  an  act  pubUshed  by  Philip 
III.  which  ordained  that  all  the  Cortesias,  as  they  termed 
these  strange  j)hrases,  they  had  so  servilely  and  ridiculously 
invented,  should  be  reduced  to  a  simple  superscription,  "  To 


250  OF  THE  TITLES   OF  ILLUSTRIOUS, 

the  king  our  lord,"  leaving  out  those  phantastical  attributes 
of  which  every  secretary  had  vied  with  his  predecessors  in 
increasing  the  number. 

It  would  fill  three  or  four  of  these  pages  to  transcribe  the 
titles  and  attributes  of  the  Grand  Signior,  which  he  assumes 
in  a  letter  to  Henry  IV.  Selden,  in  his  "  Titles  of  Honour," 
first  part,  p.  1 40,  has  preserved  them.  This  "  emperor  of 
victorious  emperors,"  as  he  styles  himself,  at  length  conde- 
scended to  agree  with  the  emperor  of  Germany,  in  1606, 
that  in  all  their  letters  and  instruments  they  should  be  only 
styled  father  and  son :  the  emperor  calling  the  sultan  his 
son ;  and  the  sultan  the  emperor,  in  regard  of  his  years,  liis 
father. 

Formerly,  says  Houssaie,  the  title  of  highness  was  only 
given  to  kings  ;  but  now  it  has  become  so  common  that  all 
the  great  houses  assume  it.  All  the  great,  says  a  modern, 
are  desirous  of  being  confounded  with  princes,  and  are  ready 
to  seize  on  the  privileges  of  royal  dignity.  We  have  ah-eady 
come  to  highness.  The  pride  of  our  descendants,  I  suspect, 
will  usurp  that  of  majesty. 

Ferdinand,  king  of  Aragon,  and  his  queen  Isabella  of  Cas 
tile,  were  only  treated  with  the  title  of  highness.  Charles 
was  the  first  who  took  that  of  majesty :  not  in  his  quality  of 
king  of  Spain,  but  as  emperor.  St.  Foix  informs  us,  that 
kings  were  usually  addressed  by  the  titles  of  most  illustrious, 
or  your  serenity,  or  your  grace  ;  but  that  the  custom  of  giving 
them  that  of  majesty  was  only  established  by  Louis  XI.,  a 
prince  the  least  majestic  in  all  his  actions,  his  manners,  and 
his  exterior — a  severe  monarch,  but  no  ordinary  man,  the 
Tiberius  of  France.  The  manners  of  this  monarch  were 
most  sordid ;  in  pubhc  audiences  he  dressed  hke  the  meanest 
of  the  people,  and  affected  to  sit  on  an  old  broken  chair,  with 
a  filthy  dog  on  his  knees.  In  an  account  found  of  his  house- 
hold, this  majestic  prince  has  a  charge  made  him  for  two 
new  sleeves  sewed  on  one  of  his  old  doublets. 

Formerly  kings  were  apostrophized  by  the  title  of  your 


HIGHNESS,  AND  EXCELLENCE.  251 

grace.  Henry  VIII.  was  the  first,  says  Iloussaie,  who 
assumed  the  title  of  highness  ;  and  at  length  majesty.  It 
was  Francis  I.  who  saluted  him  with  this  last  title,  in  their 
interview  in  the  year  1520,  though  he  called  himself  only  the 
first  gentleman  in  his  kingdom ! 

So  distinct  were  once  the  titles  of  highness  and  excellence, 
that  when  Don  Juan,  the  brother  of  Philip  II.,  was  permitted 
to  take  up  the  latter  title,  and  the  city  of  Granada  saluted 
him  by  the  title  of  highness,  it  occasioned  such  serious  jealousy 
at  court,  that,  had  he  persisted  in  it,  he  would  have  been  con- 
demned for  treason. 

The  usual  title  of  cardinals,  about  1600,  was  seignoria 
ilbistrissima ;  the  Duke  of  Lerma,  the  Spanish  minister  and 
cardinal,  in  his  old  age,  assumed  the  title  of  eccellencia  reve- 
rendissima.  The  church  of  Rome  was  in  its  glory,  and  to 
be  called  reverend  was  then  accounted  a  higher  honour 
than  to  be  styled  illustrious.  But  by  use  illustrious  grew 
familiar,  and  reverend  vulgar,  and  at  last  the  cardinals  were 
distinguished  by  the  title  of  eminent. 

After  aU  these  historical  notices  respecting  these  titles,  the 
reader  will  smile  when  he  is  acquainted  with  the  reason  of 
an  honest  curate  of  Montferrat,  who  refused  to  bestow  the 
title  of  highness  on  the  Duke  of  Mantua,  because  he  found  in 
his  breviary  these  words,  Tu  solus  Dominus,  tu  solus  Altissi- 
mus  ;  from  all  which  he  concluded,  that  none  but  the  Lord 
was  to  be  honoured  with  the  title  of  highness  !  Tlie  "  Titles 
of  Honour  "  of  Selden  is  a  very  curious  volume,  and,  as  the 
learned  Usher  told  Evelyn,  the  most  valuable  work  of  this 
great  scholar.  The  best  edition  is  a  folio  of  about  one 
thousand  pages.  Selden  vindicates  the  right  of  a  king  of 
England  to  the  title  of  emperor. 

"  And  never  yet  was  title  did  not  move; 
And  nsver  eke  a  mind,  thai  title  did  not  love/ 


252  TITLES   OF  SOVEREIGNS. 


TITLES   OF    SOVEREIGNS. 

In  countries  where  despotism  exists  in  all  its  force,  and  is 
gratified  in  all  its  caprices,  either  the  intoxication  of  poM'er 
has  occasioned  sovereigns  to  assume  the  most  solemn  and  the 
most  fantastic  titles  ;  or  the  royal  duties  and  functions  were 
considered  of  so  high  and  extensive  a  nature,  that  the  people 
expressed  their  notion  of  the  pure  monarchical  state  by  the 
most  energetic  descriptions  of  oriental  fancy. 

The' chiefs  of  the  Natchez  are  regarded  by  their  people  as 
the  children  of  the  sun,  and  they  bear  the  name  of  their  father. 

The  titles  which  some  chiefs  assume  are  not  always  hon- 
ourable in  themselves  ;  it  is  sufficient  if  the  people  respect 
them.  The  king  of  Quiterva  calls  himself  the  great  lion  ;  and 
for  this  reason  lions  are  there  so  much  respected,  that  they 
are  not  allowed  to  kill  them,  but  at  certain  royal  huntings. 

The  king  of  Monomotapa  is  surrounded  by  musicians  and 
poets,  who  adulate  him  by  such  refined  flatteries  as  lord  of 
the  sun  and  inoon  ;  great  magician  ;  and  great  thief! — 
where  probably  thievery  is  merely  a  term  for  dexterity. 

The  Asiatics  have  bestowed  what  to  us  appear  as  ridicu- 
lous titles  of  honour  on  their  princes.  The  king  of  Arracan 
assumes  the  following  ones  :  "  Emperor  of  Arracan,  possessor 
of  the  wliite  elephant,  and  the  two  ear-rings,  and  in  virtue  of 
this  possession  legitimate  heir  of  Pegu  and  Brahma ;  lord  of 
the  twelve  provinces  of  Bengal,  and  the  twelve  kings  who 
place  their  heads  under  his  feet." 

His  majesty  of  Ava  is  called  God :  when  he  writes  to  a 
foreign  sovereign  he  calls  himself  the  king  of  kings,  whom 
all  others  should  obey,  as  he  is  the  cause  of  the  preservation 
of  all  animals  ;  the  regulator  of  the  seasons,  the  absolute 
master  of  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea,  brother  to  the  sun, 
and  king  of  the  four-and-twenty  umbrellas  !  These  um 
breUas  are  always  carried  before  him  as  a  mark  of  his 
dignity. 


ROYAL   DIVINITIES.  253 

The  titles  of  the  kings  of  Achem  are  singular,  though 
voluminous.  The  most  striking  ones  are  sovereign  of  the 
universe,  whose  body  is  luminous  as  the  sun  ;  whom  God 
created  to  be  as  accomplished  as  the  moon  at  her  plenitude ; 
whose  eye  glitters  like  the  northern  star ;  a  king  as  spiritual 
as  a  ball  is  round ;  who  when  he  rises  shades  all  his  people  ; 
from  under  whose  feet  a  sweet  odour  is  wafted,  &c.  &c. 

The  Kandyan  sovereign  is  called  Dewo  (God).  In  a  deed 
of  gift  he  proclaims  his  extraordinary  attributes.  "  The  pro- 
tector of  religion,  whose  fame  is  infinite,  and  of  surpassing 
excellence,  exceeding  the  moon,  the  unexpanded  jessamine 
buds,  the  stars,  «&;c.  ;  whose  feet  are  as  fragrant  to  the  noses 
of  other  kings  as  flowers  to  bees  ;  our  most  noble  patron  and 
god  by  custom,"  &c. 

After  a  long  enumeration  of  the  countries  possessed  by  the 
king  of  Persia,  they  give  him  some  poetical  distinctions  :  the 
branch  of  honour ;  the  mirror  of  virtue  ;  and  t}i€  rose  of 
delight. 


ROYAL  DIVINITIES. 

There  va  a  curious  dissertation  in  the  "  Memoires  de 
I'Academie  des  Inscriptions  et  Belles  Lettres,"  by  the  Abbe 
Mongault,  "  on  the  divine  honours  which  were  paid  to  the 
governors  of  provinces  durmg  the  Roman  republic  ; "  in  their 
lifetime  these  originally  began  in  gratitude,  and  at  length 
degenerated  into  flattery.  These  facts  curiously  show  how 
far  the  human  mind  can  advance,  when  led  on  by  customs 
that  operate  unperceivably  on  it,  and  blind  us  in  our  absurd- 
ities. One  of  these  ceremonies  was  exquisitely  ludicrous. 
When  they  voted  a  statue  to  a  proconsul,  they  placed  it 
among  the  statues  of  the  gods  in  the  festival  called  Lectister- 
niiim,  from  the  ridiculous  circumstances  of  this  solemn  fes- 
tival. On  that  day  the  gods  were  invited  to  a  repast,  wliich 
was  however  spread  in  various  quarters  of  the  city,  to  satiate 


254  ROYAL   DIVESITIES. 

mouths  more  moiial.  The  gods  were  however  taken  down 
from  their  pedestals,  laid  on  beds  ornamented  in  their  tem- 
ples ;  pillows  were  placed  under  their  marble  heads  ;  and 
while  they  reposed  in  this  easy  posture  they  were  served 
with  a  magnificent  repast.  When  Caesar  had  conquered 
Rome,  the  servile  senate  put  him  to  dine  with  the  gods ! 
Fatigued  by  and  ashamed  of  these  honours,  he  desired  the 
senate  to  erase  from  his  statue  in  the  capitol  the  title  they 
had  given  him  of  a  demi-god  ! 

The  adulations  lavished  on  the  first  Roman  emperors 
were  extravagant ;  but  perhaps  few  know  that  they  were 
less  offensive  than  the  flatterers  of  the  third  century  under  the 
Pagan,  and  of  the  fourth  under  the  Christian  emperors. 
Those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  character  of  the  age  of 
Augustulus  have  only  to  look  at  the  one,  and  the  other  codcy 
to  find  an  infinite  number  of  passages  which  had  not  been 
tolerable  even  in  that  age.  For  instance,  here  is  a  law  of 
Arcadius  and  Honorius,  published  in  404 : — 

"  Let  the  officers  of  the  palace  be  warned  to  abstain  from 
frequenting  tumultuous  meetings  ;  and  that  those  who,  insti- 
gated by  a  sacrilpgious  temerity,  dare  to  oppose  the  authority 
of  our  divinity,  shall  be  deprived  of  their  employments,  and 
their  estates  confiscated."  The  letters  they  write  are  holy. 
When  the  sons  speak  of  their  fathers,  it  is,  "  Their  father  of 
divine  memory  ; "  or  "  Their  divine  father."  They  call  their 
own  laws  oracles,  and  celestial  oracles.  So  also  their  sub- 
jects address  them  by  the  titles  of  "  Your  Perpetuity,  your 
Eternity."  And  it  appears  by  a  law  of  Theodoric  the  Great, 
that  the  emperors  at  length  added  this  to  their  titles.  It 
begins,  "  If  any  magistrate,  after  having  concluded  a  public 
work,  put  his  name  rather  than  that  of  Our  Perpetuity,  let 
him  be  judged  guilty  of  high-treason."  All  this  reminds  one 
of  "  the  celestial  empire  "  of  the  Chinese. 

Whenever  the  Great  Mogul  made  an  observation,  Bemier 
tells  us  that  some  of  the  first  Omrahs  lifted  up  their  hands, 
crying,  "  Wonder !  wouder !  wonder !  "     And  a  proverb  cur- 


DETHRONED  MONARCHS.  255 

rent  in  his  dominion  was,  "  If  the  king  saith  at  noonday  it  is 
night,  you  are  to  say,  Behold  the  moon  and  the  stars  ! "  Such 
adulation,  however,  could  not  alter  the  general  condition  and 
fortune  of  this  unhappy  being,  who  became  a  sovereign  with- 
out knowing  what  it  is  to  be  one.  He  was  brought  out  of 
the  seraglio  to  be  placed  on  the  throne,  and  it  was  he,  rather 
than  the  spectators,  who  might  have  truly  used  the  interjec- 
tion of  astonishment ! 


DETHRONED  MONARCHS. 

Fortune  never  appears  in  a  more  extravagant  humour 
than  when  she  reduces  monarchs  to  become  mendicants. 
Half  a  century  ago  it  was  not  imagined  that  our  own  times 
should  have  to  record  many  such  instances.  After  having 
contemplated  kings  raised  into  divinities,  we  see  them  now 
depressed  as  beggars.  Our  own  times,  in  two  opposite  senses, 
may  emphatically  be  distinguished  as  the  age  of  kings. 

In  Candide,  or  the  Optimist,  there  is  an  admirable  stroke 
of  Voltaire's.  Eight  travellers  meet  in  an  obscure  inn,  and 
some  of  them  with  not  sufficient  money  to  pay  for  a  scurvy 
dinner.  In  the  course  of  conversation,  they  are  discovered 
to  be  eight  monarchs  in  Europe,  who  had  been  deprived  of 
their  crowns ! 

What  added  to  this  exquisite  satire  was,  that  there  were 
eight  living  monarchs  at  that  moment  wanderers  on  the 
earth  ; — a  circumstance  which  has  since  occurred  ! 

Adelaide,  the  widow  of  Lothario  king  of  Italy,  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  women  in  her  age,  was  besieged  in  Pavia  by 
Berenger,  who  resolved  to  constrain  her  to  marry  his  son 
after  Pavia  was  taken  ;  she  escaped  from  her  prison  with 
her  almoner.  The  archbishop  of  Reggio  had  oftVred  her  an 
asylum :  to  reach  it,  she  and  her  almoner  travelled  on  foot 
through  the  country  by  night,  concealing  herself  in  the  day 


256  DETHRONED  MONARCHS. 

time  among  the  corn,  while  the  almoner  begged  for  alms  and 
food  through  the  villages. 

The  emperor  Henry  IV.  after  having  been  deposed  and 
imprisoned  by  his  son,  Henry  V.,  escaped  from  prison ;  poor, 
vagrant,  and  without  aid,  he  entreated  the  bishop  of  Spires 
to  grant  him  a  lay  prebend  in  his  church.  "I  have  studied," 
said  he,  "  and  have  learned  to  sing,  and  may  therefore  be  of 
some  service  to  you."  The  request  was  denied,  and  he  died 
miserably  and  obscurely  at  Liege,  after  having  draAvn  the 
attention  of  Europe  to  his  victories  and  his  grandeur ! 

Mary  of  Medicis,  the  widow  of  Henry  the  Great,  mother 
of  Louis  Xin.,  mother-in-law  of  three  sovereigns,  and  regent 
of  France,  frequently  wanted  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  died 
at  Cologne  in  the  utmost  misery.  The  intrigues  of  Richelieu 
compelled  her  to  exile  herself,  and  live  an  unhappy  fugitive. 
Her  petition  exists,  with  this  supplicatory  opening:  "Supplie 
Marie,  Reine  de  France  et  de  Navarre,  disant,  que  depuis  le 
23  Fevrier  elle  aurait  ete  arretee  prisonniere  au  chateau  de 
Compiegne,  sans  etre  ni  accusee  ni  soup9onnee,"  &c.  Lilly, 
the  astrologer,  in  his  Life  and  Death  of  King  Charles  the 
First,  presents  us  Avith  a  melancholy  picture  of  this  unfortu- 
nate monarch.  He  has  also  described  the  person  of  the  old 
queen-mother  of  France  : — 

"In  the  month  of  August,  1641,  I  beheld  the  old  queen- 
mother  of  France  departing  from  London,  in  company  of 
Thomas  Earl  of  Arundel.  A  sad  spectacle  of  mortality  it 
was,  and  produced  tears  from  mine  eyes  and  many  other 
beholders,  to  see  an  aged,  lean,  decrepit,  poor  queen,  ready 
for  her  grave,  necessitated  to  depart  hence,  having  no  place 
of  residence  in  this  woi'ld  left  her,  but  where  the  courtesy  of 
her  hard  fortune  assigned  it.  She  had  been  the  only  stately 
and  magnificent  woman  of  Europe :  wife  to  the  greatest  king 
that  ever  lived  in  France ;  mother  unto  one  king  and  unto 
two  queens." 

In  the  year  1595,  died  at  Paris,  Antonio  king  of  Portugal. 
His  body  is  interred  at  the  Cordeliei's,  and  his  heart  deposited 


DETHRONED  MONARCHS.  257 

at  the  Ave-Maria.  Nothing  on  earth  could  compel  this 
prince  to  renounce  his  crown.  He  passed  over  to  England, 
and  Elizabeth  assisted  him  with  troops ;  but  at  length  he 
died  in  France  in  great  poverty.  This  dethroned  monarch 
was  happy  in  one  thing,  which  is  indeed  rare:  in  all  his 
miseries  he  had  a  servant,  who  proved  a  tender  and  faithful 
friend,  and  who  only  desired  to  participate  in  his  misfortunes, 
and  to  soften  his  miseries ;  and  for  the  recompense  of  his 
services  he  only  wished  to  be  buried  at  the  feet  of  his  dear 
master.  This  hero  in  loyalty,  to  whom  the  ancient  Romans 
would  have  raised  altars,  was  Don  Diego  Bothei,  one  of  the 
greatest  lords  of  the  court  of  Portugal,  and  who  drew  his 
origin  from  the  kings  of  Bohemia. 

Hume  supplies  an  anecdote  of  singular  royal  distress. 
The  queen  of  England,  with  her  son  Charles,  "  had  a  mod- 
erate pension  assigned  her ;  but  it  was  so  ill  paid,  and  her 
credit  ran  so  low,  that  one  morning  when  the  Cardinal  de 
Retz  waited  on  her,  she  informed  him  that  her  daughter,  the 
Princess  Henrietta,  was  obliged  to  lie  a-bed  for  want  of  a 
fire  to  warm  her.  To  such  a  condition  was  reduced,  in  the 
midst  of  Paris,  a  queen  of  England,  and  a  daughter  of 
Henry  IV.  of  France ! "  We  find  another  proof  of  her 
extreme  poverty.  Salmasius,  after  publishing  his  celebrated 
political  book,  in  favour  of  Charles  I.,  the  Defensio  Regia, 
was  much  blamed  by  a  friend  for  not  having  sent  a  copy  to 
the  widowed  queen  of  Charles,  who,  he  writes,  "  though  poor 
would  yet  have  paid  the  bearer." 

The  daughter  of  James  the  First,  who  married  the  Elector 
I'alatine,  in  her  attempts  to  get  her  husband  crowned,  was 
reduced  to  the  utmost  distress,  and  wandered  frequently  in 
disguise, 

A  strange  anecdote  is  related  of  Charles  VII.  of  France 
Our  Henry  V.  had  shrunk  his  kingdom  into  the  town  of 
Bourges.  It  is  said  that  having  told  a  shoemaker,  after  ho 
had  just  tried  a  pair  of  his  boots,  that  he  had  no  money  to 
pay  for  them,  Crispin  had  such  callous  feelings  that  he  refused 

VOL.  I.  17 


258  FEUDAL   CUSTOMS. 

his  majesty  the  boots.  "  It  is  for  this  reason,"  says  Comines, 
"  I  praise  those  princes  who  are  on  good  terms  with  the  low* 
est  of  their  people  ;  for  they  know  not  at  what  hour  they 
may  want  them." 

Many  monarchs  of  this  day  have  experienced  more  than 
once  the  truth  of  the  reflection  of  Comines. 

We  may  add  here,  that  in  all  conquered  countries  the 
descendants  of  royal  families  have  been  found  among  the 
dregs  of  the  populace.  An  Irish  prince  has  been  discoveied 
in  the  person  of  a  miserable  peasant ;  and  in  Mexico,  its 
faithful  historian  Clavigero  notices,  that  he  has  known  a 
locksmith,  who  was  a  descendant  of  its  ancient  kings,  and  a 
tailor,  the  representative  of  one  of  its  noblest  families. 


FEUDAL  CUSTOMS. 

Barbarous  as  the  feudal  customs  were,  they  were  the 
first  attempts  at  organizing  European  society.  The  northern 
nations,  in  their  irruptions  and  settlements  in  Europe,  were 
barbarians  independent  of  each  other,  till  a  sense  of  public 
safety  induced  these  hordes  to  confederate.  But  the  private 
individual  reaped  no  benefit  from  the  public  union ;  on  the 
contrary,  he  seems  to  have  lost  his  wild  liberty  in  the  subju- 
gation ;  he  in  a  short  time  was  compelled  to  suffer  from  his 
cliieftain  ;  and  the  curiosity  of  the  philosopher  is  excited  by 
contemplating  in  the  feudal  customs  a  barbarous  people  car- 
rying into  their  first  social  institutions  their  original  ferocity. 
The  institution  of  forming  cities  into  communities  at  length 
gradually  diminished  this  military  and  aristocratic  tyranny ; 
and  the  freedom  of  cities,  originating  in  the  pursuits  of  com- 
merce, shook  oif  the  yoke  of  insolent  lordsliips.  A  famous 
ecclesiastical  writer  of  that  day,  who  had  imbibed  the  feudal 
prejudices,  calls  these  communities,  which  were  distingmshed 
by  the  name  of  libertates  (hence  probably  our  municipal  term 


FKUDAL  CUSTOMS.  259 

the  liberties),  as  "  execrable  inventions,  by  which,  contrary 
to  hiw  and  justice,  shxves  withdrew  themselves  from  that 
obedience  wliich  they  owed  to  their  masters."  Such  was  the 
expiring  voice  of  aristocratic  tyranny  !  This  subject  has 
been  ingeniously  discussed  by  Robertson  in  his  preliminary 
volume  to  Charles  V, ;  but  the  following  facts  constitute  the 
picture  which  the  liistorian  leaves  to  be  gleaned  by  the 
minuter  inquirer. 

The  feudal  government  introduced  a  species  of  servitude 
which  till  that  tune  was  unknown,  and  which  was  called  the 
servitude  of  the  land.  The  bondmen  or  serfs,  and  the  vil- 
lains or  country  servants,  did  not  reside  in  the  house  of  the 
lord  :  but  they  entirely  depended  on  his  caprice  ;  and  he  sold 
them,  as  he  did  the  animals,  with  the  field  where  they  lived, 
and  which  they  cultivated. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  with  what  insolence  the  petty  lords 
of  those  times  tyrannized  over  their  villains  :  they  not  only 
oppressed  their  slaves  with  unremitted  labour,  instigated  by  a 
vile  cupidity  ;  but  their  whim  and  caprice  led  them  to  inflict 
miseries  without  even  any  motive  of  interest. 

In  Scotland  they  had  a  shameful  institution  of  maiden- 
rights  ;  and  INIalcolm  the  Third  only  abohshed  it,  by  ordering 
that  they  might  be  redeemed  by  a  quit-rent  The  truth  of 
this  circumstance  Dalrymple  has  attempted,  with  excusable 
patriotism,  to  render  doubtful.  There  seems,  however,  to  be 
no  doubt  of  the  existence  of  this  custom ;  since  it  also  spread 
through  Germany,  and  various  parts  of  Europe  ;  and  the 
French  barons  extended  their  domestic  tyranny  to  tlu-ee 
nights  of  involuntary  prostitution.  Montesquieu  is  infinitely 
French,  when  he  could  turn  this  shameful  species  of  tyranny 
into  a  bon  mot ;  for  he  boldly  observes  on  this,  "  C"  etoit  bien 
ces  trois  nuits-ld  qiCilfaUoit  choisir  ;  car  ■pour  les  autt-es  on 
ii'auroit  pas  donne  beanconp  d'argent."  The  legislator  in 
the  wit  forgot  the  feelings  of  his  heart. 

Others,  to  preserve  this  privilege  when  they  could  not 
enjoy  it  in  all  its  extent,  thrust  their  leg  booted  into  the  bed 


260  FEUDAL   CUSTOMS. 

of  the  new-married  couple.  This  was  called  the  droit  do 
ciusse.  When  the  bride  was  in  bed,  the  esquire  or  lord  per- 
formed this  ceremony,  and  stood  there,  his  thigh  in  the  bed, 
with  a  lance  in  his  hand  :  in  this  ridiculous  attitude  he  re- 
mained till  he  was  tired  ;  and  the  bridegroom  was  not  suffered 
to  enter  the  chamber,  till  his  lordship  had  retired.  Such  in- 
decent privileges  must  have  originated  in  the  worst  of  inten- 
tions ;  and  when  afterwards  they  advanced  a  step  in  more 
humane  manners,  the  ceremonial  was  preserved  from  avari- 
cious motives.  Others  have  compelled  their  subjects  to  pass 
the  first  night  at  the  top  of  a  tree,  and  there  to  consummate 
their  marriage  ;  to  pass  the  bridal  hours  in  a  river ;  or  to  be 
bound  naked  to  a  cart,  and  to  trace  some  furrows  as  they 
were  dragged  ;  or  to  leap  with  theu*  feet  tied  over  the  horns 
of  stags. 

Sometimes  their  caprice  commanded  the  bridegroom  to 
appear  in  drawers  at  their  castle,  and  plunge  into  a  ditch 
of  mud  ;  and  sometimes  they  were  compelled  to  beat  the 
waters  of  the  ponds  to  liinder  the  frogs  from  disturbing  the 
lord! 

Wardship,  or  the  privilege  of  guardianship  enjoyed  by 
some  lords  was  one  of  the  barbarous  inventions  of  the  feudal 
ages  ;  the  guardian  had  both  the  care  of  the  person,  and  for 
his  own  use  the  revenue  of  the  estates.  This  feudal  custom 
was  so  far  abused  in  England,  that  the  king  sold  these  lord- 
ships to  strangers ;  and  when  the  guardian  had  fixed  on  a 
marriage  for  the  infant,  if  the  youth  or  maiden  did  not  agree 
to  this,  they  forfeited  the  value  of  the  marriage  ;  that  is,  the 
sum  the  guardian  would  have  obtained  by  the  other  party 
had  it  taken  place.  This  cruel  custom  was  a  source  of  do- 
mestic unhappiness,  particularly  in  love-affairs,  ar  d  has  served 
as  the  groundwork  of  many  a  pathetic  jilay  by  CT;r  elder 
dramatists. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  German  lords  reckoned 
amongst  their  privileges  that  of  robbing  on  the  highways  of 
their  territory ;  which  ended  in  raising  up  the  famous  Han- 


FEUDAL  CUSTOMS.  2G1 

seatic  Union,  to  protect  their  commerce  against  rapine   and 
avariciou?  exactions  of  toll. 

Geoffrey,  lord  of  Coventry,  compelled  his  wife  to  ride 
naked  on  a  white  pad  through  the  streets  of  the  town ;  that 
by  this  mode  he  might  restore  to  the  inhabitants  those  piivi- 
le<res  of  which  liis  wantonness  had  deprived  them.  This 
anecdote  some  have  suspected  to  be  fictitious,  from  its  extreme 
l>arbarity ;  but  the  character  of  the  middle  ages  will  admit 
of  any  kind  of  wanton  barbarism. 

When  the  abbot  of  Figeac  made  his  entry  into  that  town, 
the  lord  of  Montbron,  dressed  in  a  harlequin's  coat,  and  one 
of  his  legs  naked,  was  compelled  by  an  ancient  custom  to 
conduct  him  to  the  door  of  his  abbey,  leading  his  horse  by 
the  bridle.  Blount's  "  Jocular  Tenures  "  is  a  curious  coUec 
tion  of  such  capricious  clauses  in  the  gi'ants  of  their  lands. 

The  feudal  barons  frequently  combined  to  share  among 
themselves  those  children  of  their  villains  who  appeared  to 
be  the  most  healthy  and  serviceable,  or  remarkable  for  their 
talents  ;  and  not  unfrequently  sold  them  in  their  markets. 

The  feudal  servitude  is  not,  even  in  the  present  enlight- 
ened times,  abolished  in  Poland,  in  Germany,  and  in  Russia. 
In  those  countries,  the  bondmen  are  still  entirely  dependent 
on  the  caprice  of  their  masters.  The  peasants  of  Hungary 
or  Bohemia  frequently  revolt,  and  attempt  to  shake  off  the 
pressure  of  feudal  tyranny. 

An  anecdote  of  compai'atively  recent  date  displays  their 
unfeeling  caprice.  A  lord  or  prince  of  the  noilhem  coun- 
tries passing  through  one  of  his  villages,  observed  a  small 
assembly  of  peasants  and  their  families  amusing  themselves 
with  dancing.  lie  commands  his  domestics  to  part  the  men 
from  the  women,  and  confine  them  in  the  houses.  He  orders 
the  coats  of  the  women  to  be  drawn  up  above  their  heads, 
and  tied  with  their  garters.  The  men  were  then  liberated, 
and  those  who  did  not  recognize  their  wives  in  that  state 
received  a  severe  castigation. 

Absolute  dominion  hardens  the  human  heart ;  and   nobles 


262  GAMING. 

accustomed  to  command  their  bondmen  will  treat  their  do- 
mestics as  slaves,  as  capricious  or  inhuman  West  Indians 
treated  their  domestic  slaves.  Those  of  Siberia  punish  theirs 
by  a  free  use  of  the  cudgel  or  rod.  The  Abbe  Chappe  saw 
two  Russian  slaves  undress  a  chamberaiaid,  who  had  by  some 
trifling  negligence  given  offence  to  her  mistress  ;  after  having 
uncovered  as  far  as  her  waist,  one  placed  her  head  betwixt 
his  knees  ;  the  other  held  her  by  the  feet ;  while  both,  armed 
with  two  sharp  rods,  violently  lashed  her  back  till  it  pleased 
the  domestic  tyrant  to  decree  it  was  enough  ! 

After  a  perusal  o£  these  anecdotes  of  feudal  tyranny,  we 
may  exclaim  with  Goldsmith — 

"  I  fly  from  petty  tyrants — to  the  throne." 

Mr  Hallam's  "  State  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages  " 
renders  this  short  article  superfluous  in  a  philosophical  view. 


GAMING. 

Gaming  appears  to  be  a  universal  passion.  Some  have 
attempted  to  deny  its  universality ;  they  have  imagined  that 
it  is  chiefly  prevalent  in  cold  climates,  where  such  a  passion 
becomes  most  capable  of  agitating  and  gratifying  the  torpid 
minds  of  their  inhabitants. 

The  fatal  propensity  of  gaming  is  to  be  discovered,  as 
well  amongst  the  inhabitants  of  the  frigid  and  torrid  zones, 
as  amongst  those  of  the  milder  climates.  The  savage  and 
the  civilized,  the  illiterate  and  the  learned,  are  alike  capti- 
vated by  the  hope  of  accumulating  wealth  without  the  la- 
bours of  industry. 

Barbeyrac  has  written  an  elaborate  treatise  on  gaming, 
and  we  have  two  quarto  volumes,  by  C.  Moore,  on  suicide, 
gaming,  and  duelling,  which  may  be  placed  by  the  side  of 
Barbeyrac.     All  these  works  are  excellent  sermons ;  but  a 


GAMING.  263 

eermon  to  a  gambler,  a  duellist,  or  a  suicide  !  A  dice-box,  a 
sword  and  pistol,  are  the  only  things  that  seem  to  have  any 
power  over  these  unhappy  men,  for  ever  lost  in  a  labyrinth 
of  their  own  construction. 

I  am  much  pleased  with  the  following  thought.  "  The 
ancients,"  says  the  author  of  Amusemens  Serieux  et  Oom- 
iques,  "  assembled  to  see  their  gladiators  kill  one  another ; 
they  classed  this  among  their  games !  What  barbarity ! 
But  are  we  less  barbarous,  we  who  call  a  ga7ne  an  assembly 
— who  meet  at  the  faro  table,  where  the  actors  themselves 
confess  they  only  meet  to  destroy  one  another  ?  "  In  both 
these  cases  the  philosopher  may  perhaps  discover  their  origin 
in  the  listless  state  of  ennui  requiring  an  immediate  impulse 
of  the  passions ;  and  very  inconsiderate  as  to  the  fatal  means 
which  procure  the  desired  agitation. 

The  most  ancient  treatise  by  a  modern  on  this  subject,  is 
said  to  be  by  a  French  physician,  one  Eckeloo,  who  pub- 
lished in  1569,  De  Aha,  sive  de  curandd  Ludendi  in  Pecu- 
niam  cupiditate,  that  is,  "  On  games  of  chance,  or  a  cure  for 
gaming."  The  treatise  itself  is  only  worth  notice  from  the 
circumstance  of  the  author  being  himself  one  of  the  most  in- 
veterate gamblers  ;  he  wrote  this  work  to  convince  himself  of 
this  folly.  But  in  spite  of  all  his  solemn  vows,  the  prayers 
of  his  friends,  and  his  own  book  perpetually  quoted  before 
his  face,  he  was  a  great  gamester  to  his  last  hour !  The 
same  circumstance  happened  to  Sir  John  Denham,  who  also 
published  a  tract  against  gaming,  and  to  the  last  remained  a 
gamester.  They  had  not  the  good  sense  of  old  Montaigne, 
who  gives  the  reason  why  he  gave  over  gaming.  "  I  used 
to  like  formerly  games  of  chance  with  cards  and  dice ;  but 
of  that  folly  I  have  long  been  cured  ;  merely  because  I  found 
that  whatever  good  countenance  I  put  on  when  I  lost,  I  did 
not  feel  my  vexation  the  less."  Goldsmith  fell  a  victim  to 
this  madness.  To  play  any  game  well  requires  serious 
study,  time,  and  experience.  If  a  literary  man  plays  deeply, 
he  will  be  duped  even  by  shallow  fellows,  as  well  as  by  pro- 
fessed gamblers. 


264  GAMING. 

Dice,  and  that  little  pugnacious  animal  the  cock,  arc  the 
chief  instruments  employed  by  the  numerous  nations  of  the 
East,  to  agitate  their  minds  and  ruin  their  fortunes  ;  to  which 
the  Chinese,  who  are  desperate  gamesters,  add  the  use  of 
cards.  When  all  other  property  is  played  away,  the  Asiatic 
gambler  scruples  not  to  stake  his  toife  or  his  child,  on  the 
cast  of  a  die,  or  the  courage  and  strength  of  a  martial  bird. 
If  still  unsuccessful,  the  last  venture  he  stakes  is  himself. 

In  the  island  of  Ceylon,  cock-f.qhting  is  carried  to  a  great 
height.  The  Sumatrans  are  addicted  to  the  use  of  dice.  A 
strong  spirit  of  play  characterizes  a  Malayan.  After  having 
resigned  every  thing  to  the  good  fortune  of  the  winner,  he  is 
reduced  to  a  horrid  state  of  desperation ;  he  then  loosens  a 
certain  lock  of  hair,  which  indicates  war  and  destruction  to 
all  whom  the  raving  gamester  meets.  He  intoxicates  him- 
self with  opium ;  and  working  himself  into  a  fit  of  frenzy, 
he  bites  or  kills  eveiy  one  who  comes  in  his  way.  But  as 
soon  as  this  lock  is  seen  flowing,  it  is  lawful  to  fire  at  the 
person  and  to  destroy  him  as  fast  as  possible.  This  custom 
is  what  is  called  "  To  run  a  muck."     Thus  Dryden  writes — 

"  Frontless  and  satire-proof,  he  scours  the  streets, 
And  J"M«s  an  Indian  muck  at  all  he  meets." 

Thus  also  Pope — 

"  Satire's  my  weapon,  but  I'm  too  discreet 
To  run  a  muck,  and  tilt  at  aU  I  meet." 

Johnson  could  not  discover  the  derivation  of  the  word 
muck.  To  "  run  a  muck  "  is  an  old  phrase  for  attacking 
madly  and  indiscriminately ;  and  has  since  been  ascertained 
to  be  a  Malay  word. 

To  discharge  their  gambling  debts,  the  Siamese  sell  their 
possessions,  their  families,  and  at  length  themselves.  The 
Chinese  play  night  and  day,  till  they  have  lost  all  they  are 
worth ;  and  then  they  usually  go  and  hang  themselves.  Such 
IS  the  propensity  of  the  Japanese  for  high  play,  that  they 
were  compelled  to  make  a  law,  that  "  Whoever  ventures  his 


GAMING.  265 

money  al  play  shall  be  put  to  death."  In  the  nevvly-diseov- 
ered  islands  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  they  venture  even  their 
hatchets,  which  they  hold  as  invaluable  acquisitions,  on  run- 
ning matches. — "  We  saw  a  man,"  says  Cook,  "  beating  his 
breast  and  tearing  his  hair  in  the  violence  of  rage,  for  hav- 
ing lost  three  hatchets  at  one  of  these  races,  and  which  he 
had  purchased  with  nearly  half  his  property." 

The  ancient  nations  were  not  less  addicted  to  gaming: 
Persians,  Grecians,  and  Romans  ;  the  Goths,  and  Germans. 
To  notice  the  modern  ones  were  a  melancholy  task :  there  is 
hardly  a  family  in  Europe  which  cannot  record,  from  their 
own  domestic  annals,  the  dreadful  prevalence  of  this  passion. 

Gamester  and  cheater  were  synonymous  terras  in  the  time 
of  Shakspeare  and  Jonson :  they  have  hardly  lost  much  of 
their  double  signification  in  the  present  day. 

The  following  is  a  curious  picture  of  a  gambling-house, 
from  a  contemporary  account,  and  appears  to  be  an  estab- 
lishment more  systematic  even  than  the  "  Hells  "  of  the  pres- 
ent day. 

"  A  list  of  the  officers  established  in  the  most  notorious 
gaming-houses,"  from  the  Daily  Journal,  Jan.  9,  1731. 

1st.  A  Commissioner,  always  a  proprietor,  who  looks  in 
of  a  night ;  and  the  week's  account  is  audited  by  him  and 
two  other  proprietors. 

2d.  A  Director,  who  superintends  the  room. 

3d.  An  Operator,  who  deals  the  cards  at  a  cheatmg 
game,  called  Faro. 

4th.  Two  Crowpees,  who  watch  the  cards,  and  gather 
the  money  for  the  bank. 

0th.  Two  Puffs,  who  have  money  given  them  to  decoy 
others  to  play. 

6th.  A  Clerk,  who  is  a  check  upon  the  Puffs,  to  see 
that  they  sink  none  of  the  money  given  them  to  play  with. 

7th.  A  Squib  is  a  puff  of  lower  rank,  who  serves  at  half- 
pay  salary  while  he  is  learning  to  deal. 

8th.  A  Flasher,  to  swear  how  often  the  bank  has  been 
stript. 


266  1HE  ARABIC   CHRONICLE. 

9th.  A  DuxxER,  who  goes  about  to  recover  money  lost  at 
play. 

10th.  A  Waiter,  to  fiU  out  wine,  snufF  candles,  and  at- 
tend the  gaming-room. 

11th.  An  Attorney,  a  Newgate  solicitor. 

12th.  A  Captain,  who  is  to  fight  any  gentleman  who  ia 
peevisii  for  losing  his  money. 

13th.  An  Usher,  who  lights  gentlemen  up  and  down 
stairs,  and  gives  the  word  to  the  porter. 

14th.  A  Porter,  who  is  generally  a  soldier  of  the  Foot 
Guards. 

loth.  An  Orderly  Man,  who  walks  up  and  down  the 
outside  of  the  door,  to  give  notice  to  the  porter,  and  alarm 
the  house  at  the  approach  of  the  constable. 

16th.  A  Runner,  who  is  to  get  intelligence  of  the  justices' 
meeting. 

17th.  Link-Boys,  Coachmen,  Chairmen,  or  others  who 
bring  intelligence  of  the  justices'  meetings,  or  of  the  consta- 
bles being  out,  at  half-a-guinea  reward. 

18th.  Common-bail,  Affidavit-men,  Ruffians,  Bra- 
VOES,  Assassins,  cum  multis  aliis. 

The  "  Memoirs  of  the  most  famous  Gamesters  from  the 
reign  of  Charles  II.  to  Queen  Anne,  by  T.  Lucas,  Esq., 
1 7 1 4,"  appears  to  be  a  bookseller's  job  ;  but  probably  a  few 
traditional  stories  are  preserved. 


THE  ARABIC   CHRONICLE. 

An  Arabic  chronicle  is  only  valuable  from  the  time  of 
Mahomet.  For  such  is  the  stupid  superstition  of  the  Arabs, 
that  they  pride  themselves  on  being  ignorant  of  whatever  has 
passed  before  the  mission  of  their  Prophet.  The  Aral)ic 
chronicle  of  Jerusalem  contains  the  most  curious  information 
ronceming  the  crusades :  Longuerue  translated  several  por- 


THE   ARABIC   CHRONICLE.  267 

tions  of  this  chronicle,  which  appears  to  be  written  with 
impartiality.  It  renders  justice  to  the  Christian  heroes,  and 
particularly  dwells  on  the  gallant  actions  of  the  Count  de  St. 
Gilles. 

Our  historians  chiefly  vrrite  concerning  God/re^/  de  Bouil- 
lon ;  only  the  learned  know  that  the  Count  de  St.  Gilles 
acted  there  so  important  a  character.  The  stories  of  the 
Saracens  are  just  the  reverse ;  they  speak  little  concernmg 
Godfrey,  and  eminently  distinguish  Saint  Gilles. 

Tasso  has  given  in  to  the  more  vulgar  accounts,  by  making 
the  former  so  eminent,  at  the  cost  of  the  other  heroes,  in  his 
Jerusalem  Delivered.  Thus  Virgil  transformed  by  his  magi- 
cal power  the  chaste  Dido  into  a  distracted  lover  ;  and  Homer 
the  meretricious  Penelope  into  a  moaning  matron.  It  is  not 
requisite  for  poets  to  be  historians,  but  historians  should  not 
be  so  frequently  poets.  The  same  charge,  I  have  been  told, 
must  be  made  against  the  Grecian  historians.  The  Persians 
are  viewed  to  great  disadvantage  in  Grecian  history.  It 
would  form  a  curious  inquiry,  and  the  result  might  be  unex- 
pected to  some,  were  the  Oriental  student  to  comment  on  the 
Grecian  historians.  The  Grecians  were  not  the  demi-gods 
they  paint  themselves  to  have  been,  nor  those  they  attacked 
the  contemptible  multitudes  they  describe.  These  boasted 
victories  might  be  diminished.  The  same  observation  at- 
taches to  Ciesar's  account  of  his  British  expedition.  He 
never  records  the  defeats  he  frequently  experienced.  The 
national  prejudices  of  the  Roman  historians  have  undoubtedly 
occasioned  us  to  have  a  very  erroneous  conception  of  the 
Carthaginians,  whose  discoveries  in  navigation  and  com- 
mercial enterprises  were  the  most  considerable  among  the 
ancients.  We  must  indeed  think  highly  of  that  people, 
whose  works  on  agriculture,  which  they  had  raised  into  a 
science,  the  senate  of  Rome  ordered  to  be  translated  into 
Latin.  They  must  indeed  have  been  a  wise  and  grave 
people. — Yet  they  ai-e  stigmatized  by  the  Romans  for  faction, 
cruelty,  and  cowardice ;    and  the  "  Punic "  faith  has  come 


268  METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

down  to  lis  in  a  proverb :  but  Livy  was  a  Eoman !  and  there 
is  such  a  tiling  as  a  patriotic  malignity ! 


METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

If  we  except  the  belief  of  a  future  remuneration  beyond 
this  life  for  suffering  virtue,  and  retribution  for  successful 
crimes,  there  is  no  system  so  simple,  and  so  little  repugnant 
to  our  understanding,  as  that  of  the  metempsychosis.  The 
pains  and  the  pleasures  of  this  life  are  by  this  system  con- 
sidered as  the  recompense  or  the  punishment  of  our  actions 
in  an  anterior  state :  so  that,  says  St.  Foix,  we  cease  to 
wonder  that,  among  men  and  animals,  some  enjoy  an  easy 
and  agreeable  Ufe,  while  others  seem  born  only  to  suffer  all 
kinds  of  miseries.  Preposterous  as  this  system  may  appear, 
it  has  not  wanted  for  advocates  in  the  present  age,  which 
indeed  has  revived  every  kind  of  fanciful  theory.  Mercier, 
in  L^an  deux  mille  quatre  cents  quarante,  seriously  maintains 
the  present  one. 

If  we  seek  for  the  origin  of  the  opinion  of  the  metempsy- 
chosis, or  the  transmigration  of  souls  into  other  bodies,  we 
must  plunge  into  the  remotest  antiquity ;  and  even  then  we 
shall  find  it  impossible  to  fix  the  epoch  of  its  first  author. 
The  notion  was  long  extant  in  Greece  before  the  time  of 
Pythagoras.  Herodotus  assures  us  that  the  Egyptian  priests 
taught  it ;  but  he  does  not  inform  us  of  the  time  it  began  to 
spread.  It  probably  followed  the  opinion  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  As  soon  as  the  first  philosophers  had  established 
this  dogma,  they  thought  they  could  not  maintain  this  immor- 
tality without  a  transmigration  of  souls.  The  opinion  of  the 
metempsychosis  spread  in  almost  every  region  of  the  earth ; 
and  it  continues,  even  to  the  present  time,  in  all  its  force 
amongst  those  nations  who  have  not  yet  embraced  Christian- 
ity.    The  people  of  Ai-racan,  Peru,  Siam,  Camboya,  Ton- 


METEMPSYCHOSIS.  2G9 

quin,  Cochin-China,  Japan,  Java,  and  Ceylon,  still  entertain 
that  fancy,  which  also  forms  the  chief  ai-ticle  of  the  Chinese 
religion.  The  Druids  believed  in  transmigration.  The 
bardic  triads  of  the  Welsh  are  full  of  this  belief;  and  a  Welsh 
antiquary  insists,  that  by  an  emigration  which  formerly  took 
place,  it  was  conveyed  to  the  Bramins  of  India  from  Wales ! 
The  Welsh  Bards  tell  us  that  the  souls  of  men  transmigrate 
into  the  bodies  of  those  animals  whose  habits  and  characters 
they  most  resemble,  till  after  a  circuit  of  such  penitential 
miseries,  they  are  purified  for  the  celestial  preser'ce  ;  for  man 
may  be  converted  into  a  pig  or  a  wolf,  till  at  length  he  as- 
sumes the  inoffensiveness  of  the  dove. 

My  learned  friend  Sharon  Turner  has  explained,  in  his 
"Vindication  of  the  ancient  British  Poems,"  p.  231,  the 
Welsh  system  of  the  metempsychosis.  Their  bards  mention 
three  circles  of  existence.  The  circle  of  the  all-enclosing  cir- 
cle holds  nothing  alive  or  dead,  but  God.  The  second  circle, 
that  of  felicity,  is  that  which  men  are  to  pervade  after  they 
have  passed  through  their  terrestrial  changes.  The  circle  of 
evil  is  that  in  which  human  nature  passes  through  those 
varjang  stages  of  existence  which  it  must  undergo  before  it 
is  qualified  to  inhabit  the  circle  of  felicity. 

The  progression  of  man  through  the  circle  of  evil  is  marked 
by  three  infelicities:  Necessity,  oblivion,  and  deaths.  The 
deaths  which  follow  our  changes  are  so  many  escapes  from 
their  power.  Man  is  a  free  agent,  and  has  the  liberty  of 
choosing  ;  his  sufferings  and  changes  cannot  be  foreseen.  By 
his  misconduct  he  may  happen  to  fall  retrograde  into  the 
lowest  state  from  which  he  had  emerged.  If  his  conduct  in 
any  one  state,  instead  of  improving  his  being,  had  made  it 
worse,  he  fell  back  into  a  worse  condition,  to  commence  again 
his  purifying  revolutions.  Humanity  was  the  limit  of  the 
degi-aded  transmigrations.  All  the  changes  above  humanity 
produced  fehcity.  Humanity  is  the  scene  of  the  contest ; 
and  after  man  has  traversed  every  state  of  animated  exist- 
ence, and  can  remember  all  that  he  has  passed  through,  that 


270  METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

consummation  follows  which  he  attains  in  the  circle  of  felicity. 
It  is  on  this  system  of  transmigration  that  Taliessin,  the 
Welsh  bard,  who  wrote  in  the  sixth  century,  gives  a  recital 
of  his  pretended  transmigrations.  He  tells  how  he  had  been 
a  serpent,  a  wild  ass,  a  buck,  or  a  crane,  &c. ;  and  this  kind 
of  reminiscence  of  liis  former  state,  this  recovery  of  memory, 
was  a  proof  of  the  mortal's  advances  to  the  happier  circle. 
For  to  forget  what  we  have  been  was  one  of  the  curses  of 
the  circle  of  evil.  Taliessin  therefore,  adds  Mr.  Turner,  as 
profusely  boasts  of  his  recovered  reminiscence  as  any  modern 
sectary  can  do  of  his  state  of  gi-ace  and  election. 

In  all  these  wild  reveries  there  seems  to  be  a  moral  fable 
in  the  notion,  that  the  clearer  a  man  recollects  what  a  hrute 
he  has  been,  it  is  a  certain  proof  that  he  is  in  an  improved 
state ! 

According  to  the  authentic  Clavigero,  in  his  history  of 
Mexico,  we  find  the  Pj-thagorean  transmigration  carried  on 
in  the  West,  and  not  less  fancifully  than  in  the  countries  of 
the  East.  The  people  of  Tlascala  believe  that  the  souls  ot 
persons  of  rank  went  after  their  death  to  inhabit  the  bodies 
of  beautiful  and  sweet  singing  birds,  and  those  of  the  nobler 
quadrupeds  ;  while  the  souls  of  inferior  persons  were  sup- 
posed to  pass  into  weasels,  beetles,  and  such  other  meaner 
animals. 

There  is  something  not  a  little  ludicrous  in  the  description 
Plutarch  gives  at  the  close  of  his  treatise  on  "  the  delay  of 
heavenly  justice."  Thespesius  saw  at  length  the  souls  of 
those  who  were  condemned  to  return  to  life,  and  whom  they 
violently  forced  to  take  the  forms  of  all  kinds  of  animals. 
The  labourers  charged  with  this  transformation  forged  with 
their  instruments  certain  parts  ;  others,  a  new  form ;  and 
made  some  totally  disappear;  that  these  souls  might  be 
rendered  proper  for  another  kind  of  life  and  other  habits. 
Among  these  he  perceived  the  soul  of  Nero,  which  had 
already  suffered  long  torments,  and  which  stuck  to  the 
body  by  nails  red  from  the  fire.     The   workmen   seized  on 


SPANISH  ETIQUETTE.  271 

him  to  make  a  viper  of,  under  wliich  form  he  was  now  to 
live,  after  iiaving  devoured  the  breast  that  had  carried  liim. 
— But  in  this  Plutarch  only  copies  the  fine  reveries  of  Plato. 


SPANISH  ETIQUETTE. 

The  etiquette,  or  rules  to  be  observed  in  royal  palaces,  ia 
necessary  for  keeping  order  at  court.  In  Spain  it  was  car" 
ried  to  such  lengths  as  to  make  martyrs  of  their  kings. 
Here  is  an  instance,  at  which,  in  spite  of  the  fatal  conse- 
quences it  produced,  one  cannot  refrain  from  smiling. 

Philip  the  Third  was  gravely  seated  by  the  fire-side :  tlie 
fire-maker  of  the  court  had  kindled  so  great  a  quantity  of 
wood,  that  the  monarch  was  nearly  suffocated  with  heat,  and 
his  grandeur  would  not  suffer  him  to  rise  from  the  chair ; 
the  domestics  could  not  presume  to  enter  the  apartment,  be- 
cause it  was  against  the  etiquette.  At  length  the  Marquis  de 
Potat  appeared,  and  the  king  ordered  him  to  damp  the  fire ; 
but  he  excused  himself;  alleging  that  he  was  forbidden  by 
the  etiquette  to  perform  such  a  function,  for  which  the  Duke 
d'Usseda  ought  to  be  called  upon,  as  it  was  his  business.  The 
duke  was  gone  out:  the  Jire  burnt  fiercer;  and  the  king 
endured  it,  rather  than  derogate  from  his  dignity.  But  his 
blood  was  heated  to  such  a  degree,  that  an  erysipelas  of  the 
head  appeared  the  next  day,  which,  succeeded  by  a  violent 
fever,  carried  him  off  in  1621,  in  the  twenty-fourth  year  of 
his  reign. 

The  palace  was  once  on  fire ;  a  soldier,  who  knew  the 
king's  sister  was  in  her  apartment,  and  must  inevitably  have 
been  consumed  m  a  few  moments  by  the  flames,  at  the  risk 
of  his  life  rushed  in,  and  brought  her  highness  safe  out  in 
his  arms !  but  the  Spanish  etiquette  was  here  wofully  broken 
into !  The  loyal  soldier  was  brought  to  trial ;  and  as  it  waa 
impossible  to  deny  that  he  had  entered  her  apartment,  the 


272  SPANISH  ETIQUETTE. 

judges  condemned  him  to  die  !  The  Spanish  Princess  how- 
ever condescended,  in  consideration  of  the  circumstance,  to 
pardon  the  soldier,  and  very  benevolently  saved  his  life. 

When  Isabella,  mother  of  Philip  II.,  was  ready  to  be  de- 
livered of  him,  she  commanded  that  all  the  lights  should  be 
extinguished :  that  if  the  violence  of  her  pain  should  occa- 
sion her  face  to  change  colour,  no  one  might  perceive  it. 
And  when  the  midwife  said,  "  Madam,  cry  out,  that  will  give 
you  ease,"  she  answered  in  good  Spanish,  "  How  dare  you 
give  me  such  advice  ?     I  would  rather  die  than  cry  out." 

"  Spain  gives  us  pi^ide — which  Spain  to  all  the  earth 
May  largely  give,  nor  fear  herself  a  dearth!  " — Churchill. 

Philip  the  Third  was  a  weak  bigot,  who  suffered  himself 
to  be  governed  by  his  ministers.  A  patriot  Avished  to  open 
his  eyes,  but  he  could  not  pierce  through  the  crowds  of  his 
flatterers ;  besides  that  the  voice  of  patriotism  heard  in  a 
corrupted  court  would  have  become  a  crime  never  pardoned. 
He  found,  however,  an  ingenious  manner  of  conveying  to 
him  his  censure.  He  caused  to  be  laid  on  his  table,  one  day, 
a  letter  sealed,  which  bore  this  address — "  To  the  King  of 
Spain,  Philip  the  Third,  at  present  in  the  service  of  the 
Duke  of  Lerma." 

In  a  similar  manner,  Don  Carlos,  son  to  Philip  the  Second, 
made  a  book  with  empty  pages,  to  contain  the  voyages  of 
his  father,  which  bore  this  title — "  The  great  and  admirable 
Voyages  of  the  King  Mr.  Philip."  All  these  voyages  con- 
sisted in  going  to  the  Escurial  from  Madrid,  and  returning 
to  Madrid  from  the  Escurial.  Jests  of  this  kind  at  length 
cost  him  his  life. 


THE   GOTHS   AND   HUNS.— VICARS  OF  BRAY.  273 


THE   GOTHS   AND   HUNS. 

The  terrific  honours  which  these  ferocious  nations  paid  to 
their  deceased  monarchs  are  recorded  in  history,  by  the  in- 
terment of  Attila,  king  of  the  Huns,  and  Alaric,  king  of  the 
Goths. 

Attila  died  in  453,  and  was  buried  in  the  midst  of  a  vast 
champaign  in  a  coffin  which  was  inclosed  in  one  of  gold, 
another  of  silver,  and  a  third  of  iron,  "With  the  body  were 
interred  all  the  spoils  of  the  enemy,  harnesses  embroidered 
with  gold  and  studded  with  jewels,  rich  silks,  and  whatever 
they  had  taken  most  precious  in  the  palaces  of  the  kings 
they  had  pillaged ;  and  that  the  place  of  his  interment  might 
for  ever  remain  concealed,  the  Huns  deprived  of  life  all  who 
assisted  at  his  burial ! 

The  Goths  had  done  nearly  the  same  for  Alaric  in  410,  at 
Cosenfa,  a  town  in  Calabria.  They  turned  aside  the  river 
Vasento ;  and  having  formed  a  grave  in  the  midst  of  its  bed 
where  its  course  was  most  rapid,  they  interred  this  king  with 
prodigious  accumulations  of  riches.  After  having  caused  the 
river  to  reassume  its  usual  course,  they  murdered,  without 
exception,  all  those  who  had  been  concerned  in  digging  this 
singular  grave. 


VICARS   OF  BRAY. 

The  vicar  of  Bray,  in  Berkshire,  was  a  papist  under  the 
reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  a  protestant  under  Edward 
the  Sixth ;  he  was  a  pa[)ist  again  under  JNIary,  and  once 
more  became  a  protestant  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  When 
this  srandal  to  the  gown  was  reproached  for  his  versatility  of 
religious  creeds,  and  taxed  for  being  a  turncoat  and  an  incon- 
stant changeling,  as  Fuller  expresses  it,  he  replied,  "  Not  so 

VOL.  I.  18 


274  DOUGLAS. 

neither ;  for  if  I  changed  my  religion,  I  am  sure  I  kept  true 
to  my  principle  ;  which  is,  to  live  and  die  the  vicar  of  Bray  !  " 
This  vivacious  and  reverend  hero  has  given  birth  to  a 
proverb  peculiar  to  this  county,  "  The  vicar  of  Bray  will  be 
vicar  of  Bray  still."  But  how  has  it  happened  that  this 
vicar  should  be  so  notorious,  and  one  in  much  higher  rank, 
acting  the  same  part,  should  have  escaped  notice  ?  Dr. 
Kitchen,  bishop  of  LlandafF,  from  an  idle  abbot  under  Henry 
VIIL  was  made  a  busy  bishop  ;  protestant  under  Edward, 
he  returned  to  his  old  master  under  Mary  ;  and  at  last  took 
llie  oath  of  supremacy  under  Ehzabeth,  and  finished  as  a 
parliament  protestant.  A  pun  spread  the  odium  of  his 
name  ;  for  they  said  that  he  had  always  loved  the  Kitchen 
better  than  the  Church  ! 


DOUGLAS. 

It  may  be  recorded  as  a  species  of  Puritanic  barbarism, 
that  no  later  than  the  year  1757,  a  man  of  genius  was  perse- 
cuted because  he  had  written  a  tragedy  which  tended  by  no 
means  to  hurt  the  morals ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  by  awaken- 
ing the  piety  of  domestic  affections  with  the  nobler  passions, 
would  rather  elevate  and  purify  the  mind. 

When  Home,  the  author  of  the  tragedy  of  Douglas,  had  it 
performed  at  Edinburgh,  some  of  the  divines,  his  acquaiii 
tance,  attending  the  representation,  the  clergy,  with  the  mon- 
astic spirit  of  the  darkest  ages,  published  a  paper,  which  I 
abridge  for  the  contemplation  of  the  reader,  who  may  won- 
der to  see  such  a  composition  written  in  the  eighteenth  ceu 
tury. 

"On  Wednesday,  February  the  2d,  1757,  the  Prcisbytery 
of  Glasgow  came  to  the  following  resolution.  They  having 
seen  a  printed  paper,  intituled,  'An  admonition  and  exhorta- 
tion of  the  reverend  Presbytery  of  Edinburgh ; '  which,  among 


CRITICAL   HISTORY   OF   POVERTY.  275 

Other  evils  prevailing,  observing  the  following  melancholy  but 
notorious  facts  :  that  one  who  is  a  minister  of  the  church  of 
Scotland  did  himself  write  and  compose  a  slage-play,  in- 
tituled, '  The  tragedy  of  Douglas,'  and  got  it  to  be  acted  at 
the  theatre  of  Edinburgh  ;  and  that  he  with  several  other 
ministers  of  the  church  were  present ;  and  some  of  them 
oftener  than  once,  at  the  acting  of  the  said  play  before  a 
numerous  audience.  The  presbytery  being  deeply  affected 
with  this  new  and  strange  appearance,  do  publish  these  senti- 
ments," «fec.  Sentiments  with  which  I  will  not  disgust  the 
reader ;  but  which  they  appear  not  yet  to  have  purified  and 
corrected,  as  they  ha\e  shown  in  the  case  of  Logan  and 
other  Scotchmen,  who  have  committed  the  crying  sin  of 
composing  dramas  1 


CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  POVERTY. 

M.  MoRiN,  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  French  Academy,  Jias 
formed  a  little  history  of  Poverty,  which  I  abridge. 

The  writers  on  the  genealogies  of  the  gods  have  not  no- 
ticed the  deity  of  Poverty,  though  admitted  as  such  in  the 
pagan  heaven,  while  she  has  had  temples  and  altars  on  earth. 
The  allegorical  Plato  has  pleasingly  narrated,  that  at  the 
feast  which  Jupiter  gave  on  the  birth  of  Venus,  Poverty 
modestly  stood  at  the  gate  of  the  palace  to  gather  the  frag- 
ments of  the  celestial  banquet ;  when  she  observed  the  god 
of  riches,  inebriated  with  nectar,  roll  out  of  the  heavenly 
residence,  and  passing  into  the  Olympian  gardens,  throw 
himself  on  a  vernal  bank.  She  seized  this  opportunity  to 
become  familiar  with  the  god.  The  frolicsome  deity  hon- 
oured her  with  his  caresses ;  and  from  this  amour  sprung 
the  god  of  Love,  Avho  resembles  his  father  in  jollity  and 
mirth,  and  his  mother  in  his  nudity.  The  allegory  is  in- 
genious. The  union  of  poverty  with  riches  must  inevitably 
produce  the  most  delightful  of  pleasures. 


276  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  POVERTY. 

The  golden  age,  however,  had  but  the  duration  of  a  flower 
when  it  finished,  Poverty  began  to  appear.  The  ancestora 
of  the  human  race,  if  they  did  not  meet  her  face  to  face, 
knew  her  in  a  partial  degree  ;  the  vagrant  Cain  encountered 
her.  She  was  firmly  established  in  the  patriarchal  age.  We 
hear  of  merchants  who  publicly  practised  the  connnerce  of 
vending  slaves,  which  indicates  the  utmost  degree  of  poverty 
She  is  distinctly  marked  by  Job :  this  holy  man  protests,  thai 
he  had  nothing  to  reproach  himself  with  respecting  the  poor 
for  he  had  assisted  them  in  their  necessities. 

In  the  scriptures,  legislators  paid  great  attention  to  their 
relief.  Moses,  by  his  wise  precautions,  endeavoured  to  soften 
the  rigours  of  this  unhappy  state.  The  division  of  lands,  by 
tribes  and  families  ;  the  septennial  jubilees  ;  the  regulation  to 
bestow  at  the  harvest-time  a  certain  portion  of  all  the  fruits 
of  the  earth  for  those  families  who  were  in  want ;  and  the 
obligation  of  his  moral  law  to  love  one's  neighbour  as  one's 
self;  were  so  many  mounds  erected  against  the  inundations 
of  poverty.  The  Jews  under  their  Theocracy  had  few  or  no 
mendicants.  Their  kings  were  unjust ;  and  rapaciously  seiz- 
ing on  inheritances  which  were  not  their  right,  increased  the 
numbers  of  the  poor.  From  the  reign  of  David  there  were 
oppressive  governors,  who  devoured  the  people  as  their  bread. 
It  was  still  worse  under  the  foreign  powers  of  Babylon,  of 
Persia,  and  the  Roman  emperors.  Such  were  the  extortions 
of  their  publicans,  and  the  avarice  of  their  governors,  that 
the  number  of  mendicants  dreadfully  augmented  ;  and  it  was 
probably  for  that  reason  that  the  opulent  families  consecrated 
a  tenth  part  of  their  property  for  their  succour,  as  appears 
in  the  time  of  the  evangelists.  In  the  preceding  ages  no 
more  was  given,  as  their  casuists  assure  us,  than  the  fortietli 
or  thirtieth  part ;  a  custom  which  this  singular  nation  still 
practise.  If  there  are  no  poor  of  their  nation  where  they 
reside,  they  send  it  to  the  most  distant  parts.  The  Jewish 
merchants  make  this  charity  a  regular  charge  in  their  trans- 
actions with  each  other ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  year  render 
an  account  to  the  poor  of  their  nation. 


CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  POVERTY.  277 

By  the  example  of  Moses,  the  ancient  legislators  were 
taught  to  pay  a  similar  attention  to  the  poor.  Like  him, 
they  published  laws  respecting  the  division  of  lands  ;  and 
many  ordinances  were  made  lor  the  benefit  of  those  whom 
fires,  inundations,  wars,  or  bad  harvests  had  reduced  to  want. 
Convinced  that  idleness  more  inevitably  introduced  poverty 
than  any  other  cause,  it  was  rigorously  punished  ;  the  Egyp- 
tians made  it  criminal,  and  no  vagabonds  or  mendicants  were 
suffered  under  any  pretence  whatever.  Those  who  were 
convicted  of  slothfulness,  and  still  refused  to  labour  for  the 
public  when  labour  was  offered  to  them,  were  punished  with 
death.  The  famous  Pyramids  are  the  w^orks  of  men  who 
otherwise  had  remained  vagabonds  and  mendicants. 

The  same  spirit  inspired  Greece.  Lycurgus  would  not 
have  in  his  republic  either  poor  or  rich :  they  lived  and 
laboured  in  common.  As  in  the  present  times,  every  family 
has  its  stores  and  cellars,  so  they  had  public  ones,  and  distri- 
buted the  provisions  according  to  the  ages  and  constitutions 
of  the  people.  If  the  same  regulation  was  not  precisely  ob- 
served by  the  Athenians,  the  Corinthians,  and  the  other 
people  of  Greece,  the  same  maxim  existed  in  full  force 
against  idleness. 

■  According  to  the  laws  of  Draco,  Solon,  &c.,  a  conviction 
of  wilful  poverty  was  punished  with  the  loss  of  life.  Plato, 
more  gentle  in  his  manners,  would  have  them  only  banished. 
He  calls  them  enemies  of  the  state  ;  and  pronounces  as  a 
maxim,  that  where  there  are  great  numbers  of  mendicants, 
fatal  revolutions  will  happen  ;  for  as  these  people  have  noth- 
ing to  lose,  they  plan  opportunities  to  disturb  the  public 
rfpose. 

The  ancient  Romans,  whose  universal  object  was  the  public 
prosperity,  were  not  indebted  to  Greece  on  this  head.  One 
of  the  principal  occupations  of  their  censors  was  to  keep  a 
watch  on  the  vagabonds.  Those  who  were  condt'inned  as 
incorrigible  sluggards  were  sent  to  the  mines,  or  made  to 
labour  on  the  public  edifices.     The  Romans  of  those  times, 


278  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  P0\T:RTY. 

unlike  the  present  race,  did  not  consider  the  far  niente  as  an 
occupation  ;  they  were  convinced  that  their  liberalities  were 
ill-placed  in  bestowing  them  on  such  men.  The  little  repub- 
lics of  the  hees  and  the  ants  were  often  held  out  as  an  ex- 
ample ;  and  the  last  particularly,  where  Virgil  says,  that  Ihey 
have  elected  overseers  who  correct  the  slu^sards : 


oo"^ 


" Pars  aginina  cogunt, 

Castigantque  moras." 

And  if  we  may  trust  the  narratives  of  our  travellers,  the 
beavers  pursue  this  regulation  more  rigorously  and  exactly 
than  even  these  industrious  societies.  But  their  rigour,  al- 
though but  animals,  is  not  so  barbarous  as  that  of  the  ancient 
Germans ;  who,  Tacitus  informs  us,  plunged  the  idlers  and 
vagabonds  in  the  thickest  mire  of  their  marshes,  and  lefit  them 
to  perish  by  a  kind  of  death  which  resembled  their  inactive 
dispositions. 

Yet,  after  all,  it  was  not  inhumanity  that  prompted  the  an- 
cients thus  severely  to  chastise  idleness  ;  they  were  induced 
to  it  by  a  strict  equity,  and  it  would  be  doing  them  injustice 
to  suppose,  that  it  was  thus  they  treated  those  unfortunate 
poor,  whose  indigence  was  occasioned  by  infirmities,  by  age, 
or  unforeseen  calamities.  Every  family  constantly  assisted 
its  branches  to  save  them  from  being  reduced  to  beggary ; 
which  to  them  appeared  worse  than  death.  The  magistrates 
protected  those  who  were  destitute  of  friends,  or  incapable  of 
labour.  When  Ulysses  was  disguised  as  a  mendicant,  and 
presented  himself  to  Eurymachus,  this  prince  observing  him 
to  be  robust  and  healthy,  offered  to  give  him  employment,  or 
otherwise  to  leave  him  to  his  ill  fortune.  When  the  Roman 
Emperors,  even  in  the  reigns  of  Nero  and  Tiberius,  bestowed 
their  largesses,  the  distributors  were  ordered  to  exempt  those 
from  receiving  a  share  whose  bad  conduct  kept  them  in  mis- 
ery;  for  that  it  was  better  the  lazy  should  die  with  hunger 
than  be  fed  in  idleness. 

Whether  the  police  of  the  ancients  was   more   exact,  or 


CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  POVERTY.  279 

whether  they  were  more  attentive  to  practise  the  duties  of 
humanity,  or  that  slavery  served  as  an  efficacious  corrective 
of  idleness ;  it  clearly  appears  how  small  was  the  misery, 
and  how  few  the  numbers  of  their  poor.  This  they  did,  too, 
without  having  recourse  to  hospitals. 

At  the  establishment  of  Christianity,  when  the  apostles 
commanded  a  community  of  wealth  among  their  disciples,  the 
miseries  of  the  poor  became  alleviated  in  a  greater  degree. 
If  they  did  not  absolutely  live  together,  as  we  have  seen  reli- 
gious orders,  yet  the  wealthy  continually  supplied  their  dis- 
tressed brethren :  but  matters  greatly  changed  under  Con- 
stantine.  This  prince  published  edicts  in  favour  of  those 
Christians  who  had  been  condemned  in  the  preceding  reigns 
to  slavery,  to  the  mines,  to  the  galleys,  or  prisons.  The 
church  felt  an  inundation  of  prodigious  crowds  of  these  miser- 
able men,  who  brought  with  them  urgent  wants  and  cor{)oreaI 
infirmities.  The  Christian  families  were  then  not  numerous ; 
they  could  not  satisfy  these  claimants.  The  magistrates  pro- 
tected them  :  they  built  spacious  hospitals,  under  different 
titles,  for  the  sick,  the  aged,  the  invalids,  the  widows,  and 
orphans.  The  emperors,  and  the  most  eminent  personages, 
were  seen  in  these  hospitals,  examining  the  patients ;  they 
assisted  the  helpless  ;  they  dressed  the  wounded.  This  did  so 
much  honour  to  the  new  religion,  that  Julian  the  Apostate 
introduced  this  custom  among  the  pagans.  But  the  best 
things  are  continually  perverted. 

These  retreats  were  found  insufficient.  INIany  slaves, 
proud  of  the  liberty  they  had  just  recovered,  looked  on  them 
as  prisons ;  and,  under  various  pretexts,  wand(!red  about  the 
country.  They  displayed  with  art  the  scars  of  their  former 
wounds,  and  exposed  the  imprinted  marks  of  their  chains. 
They  found  thus  a  lucrative  profession  in  begging,  which  had 
been  interdicted  by  the  laws.  The  profession  did  not  finish 
with  them  :  men  of  an  untoward,  tarbulent,  and  licentious 
disposition,  gladly  embraced  it.  It  spread  so  wide  that  the 
succeeding  emperors  were  obliged  to  institute  new  laws  ;  and 


280 


SOLOMON  AND  SHEBA. 


individuals  were  allowed  to  seize  on  these  mendicants  Ibi 
their  slaves  and  perpetual  vassals  :  a  powerful  preservative 
against  this  disordtT.  It  is  observed  in  almost  every  part  of 
the  world,  but  ours  ;  and  prevents  that  populace  of  beggary 
which  disgraces  Europe.  China  presents  us  with  a  noble 
example.  No  beggars  are  seen  loitering  in  that  country. 
All  the  world  are  occupied,  even  to  the  blind  and  the  lame ; 
and  only  those  who  are  incapable  of  labour  live  at  the  public 
expense.  What  is  done  there  may  also  be  performed  here. 
Instead  of  that  hideous,  importunate,  idle,  licentious  poverty, 
as  pernicious  to  the  police  as  to  morality,  we  should  see  the 
poverty  of  the  earlier  ages,  humble,  modest,  frugal,  robust, 
industrious,  and  laborious.  Then,  indeed,  the  fable  of  Plato 
might  be  realized :  Poverty  might  be  embraced  by  the  god 
of  Riches ;  and  if  she  did  not  produce  the  voluptuous  off- 
spring of  Love,  she  would  become  the  fertile  mother  of  Agri- 
culture, and  the  ingenious  parent  of  the  Arts  and  Manufac- 
tures. 


SOLOMON  AND  SIIEBA. 

A  RABBIN  once  told  me  an  ingenious  invention,  which  in 
the  Talmud  is  attributed  to  Solomon. 

The  power  of  the  monarch  had  spread  his  wisdom  to  the 
remotest  parts  of  the  known  world.  Queen  Sheba,  attracted 
by  the  splendour  of  his  reputation,  visited  this  poetical  king 
at  his  own  court ;  there,  one  day  to  exercise  the  sagacity  of 
the  monarch,  Sheba  presented  herself  at  the  foot  of  the 
throne  :  in  each  hand  she  held  a  wreath  ;  the  one  was  com- 
posed of  natural,  and  the  other  of  artificial,  flowers.  Art,  in 
the  labour  of  the  mimetic  wreath,  had  exquisitely  emulated 
the  lively  hues  of  nature ;  so  that,  at  the  distance  it  was  held 
by  the  queen  for  the  inspection  of  the  king,  it  was  deemed 
impossible  for  him  to  decide,  as  her  question  imported,  which 
wreath  was  the  production  of  nature,  and  which  the  work  of 


HELL.  281 

art.  The  sagacious  Solomon  seemed  perplexed  ;  jet  to  be 
vanquished,  though  in  a  trifle,  by  a  trifling  woman,  irritated 
his  pride.  The  son  of  David,  he  who  had  written  treatises 
on  the  vegetable  productions  "  from  the  cedar  to  the  hyssop," 
to  acknowledge. himself  outwitted  by  a  woman,  with  shreds 
of  paper  and  glazed  paintings  !  The  honour  of  the  monarch's 
reputation  for  divine  sagacity  seemed  diminished,  and  the 
whole  Jewish  court  looked  solemn  and  melancholy.  At 
length  an  expedient  presented  itself  to  the  king  ;  and  one  it 
must  be  confessed  worthy  of  the  naturalist.  Observing  a 
cluster  of  bees  hovering  about  a  window,  he  commanded  that 
it  should  be  opened :  it  was  opened ;  the  bees  rushed  into  the 
court,  and  alighted  immediately  on  one  of  the  wreaths,  while 
not  a  single  one  fixed  on  the  other.  The  baffled  Sheba  had 
one  more  reason  to  be  astonished  at  the  wisdom  of  Solomon. 
This  would  make  a  pretty  poetical  tale.  It  would  yield  an 
elegant  description,  and  a  pleasing  moral ;  that  the  bee  only 
rests  on  the  natural  beauties,  and  never  fixes  on  the  painted 
fiowers,  however  inimitably  the  colours  may  be  laid  on. 
Applied  to  the  ladies,  this  would  give  it  pungency.  In  the 
"  Practical  Education "  of  the  Edgeworths,  the  reader  will 
find  a  very  ingenious  conversation  founded  ou  this  story. 


HELL. 

Oldham,  in  his  "  Satires  upon  the  Jesuits,"  a  work  which 
would  admit  of  a  curious  commentary,  alludes  to  their 
"  lying  legends,"  and  the  innumerable  impositions  they  prac- 
tised on  the  credulous.  I  quote  a  few  lines  in  which  he  has 
collected  some  of  those  legendary  miracles,  which  I  have 
noticed  in  the  article  Legends,  and  the  amours  of  the  Vir 
gin  Mary  are  detailed  at  page  28,  Vol.  II.  ai-t.  Religions 
ISfouvellettes. 

Tell,  how  blessed  Virgin  to  come  down  wa3  seen, 
Like  play-house  punk  descending  in  machine, 


282  HELL. 

How  she  writ  billet-doux  and  love-discourse, 
Made  assignations,  visits,  and  amours ; 
How  hosts  distrest,  her  smock  for  banner  wore, 
Which  vanquished  foes! 

how  Jish  in  conventicles  met, 

And  mackerd  were  with  bait  of  doctrine  caught 

How  cattle  have  judicious  hearers  been  ! — 

How  consecrated  hires  with  bells  were  hung, 

And  bees  kept  mass,  and  holy  anthems  sung  ! 

How  pigs  to  th'  rosary  kneel'd,  and  sheep  were  taught 

To  bleat  Te  Deum  and  Magnificui  ; 

'Row  Jly-Jlap,  of  church-censure  houses  rid 

Of  insects,  which  at  curse  offrynr  died. 

THoyj  ferrying  cowls  religious  pilgrims  bore 

O'er  waves,  without  the  help  of  sail  or  oar  ; 

How  zealous  crab  the  sacred  image  bore, 

And  swam  a  catholic  to  the  distant  shore. 

With  shams  like  these  the  giddy  rout  mislead, 

Their  folly  and  their  superstition  feed. 

All  these  are  allusions  to  the  extravagant  fictions  in  the 
"  Golden  Legend."  Among  other  gross  impositions  to  de- 
ceive the  mob,  Oldham  likewise  attacks  them  for  certain  pub- 
lications on  topics  not  less  singular.  The  tales  he  has 
recounted,  Oldham  says,  are  onlj  baits  for  children,  like  toys 
at  a  fair  ;  but  they  have  their  profounder  and  higher  matters 
for  the  learned  and  the  inquisitive.     He  goes  on : — 

One  undertakes  by  scales  of  miles  to  tell 
The  bounds,  dimensions,  and  extent  of  hell  ; 
How  many  Gennan  leagues  that  realm  contains! 
How  many  chaldrons  Hell  each  year  expends 
In  coals  for  roasting  Hugonots  and  friends! 
Another  frights  the  rout  with  useful  stories 
Of  wild  chimeras,  limbos — purgatories — 
Where  bloated  souls  in  smoky  durance  hnng. 
Like  a  Westphalia  gammon  or  neat's  tongue, 
To  be  redeem'd  with  masses  ard  a  song. 

Satire  IV. 

The  readers  of  Oldham,  for  Oldham  must  ever  have  read- 
ers among  the  curious  in  our  poetry,  have  been  greatly  disap- 
pointed in  the  pompous  edition  of  a  Captain  Thompson, 
which  illustrates  none  of  his  allusions.  In  the  above  lines 
Oldham  alludes  to  some  singular  works. 


HELL.  283 

Treatises  luul  topographical  descriptions  of  hell,  pukga- 
TOKY,  and  even  heaven,  were  once  the  favorite  researches 
among  certain  zealous  defenders  of  the  Romish  Church,  who 
exhausted  their  ink-horns  in  building  up  a  Hell  to  their  own 
taste,  or  for  tlieir  particular  pui-pose.  We  have  a  treatise  of 
Cardinal  Bellarinin,  a  Jesuit,  on  Purgatory ;  he  seems  to 
have  the  science  of  a  surveyoi-,  among  all  the  secret  tracks 
and  the  formidable  divisions  of  "  the  bottomless  pit." 

Bellarmin  informs  us  that  there  are  beneatli  the  earth  four 
different  places,  or  a  profound  place  divided  into  four  parts. 
The  deepest  of  these  places  is  Hell ;  it  contains  all  the  souls 
of  the  damned,  where  will  be  also  their  bodies  after  the 
resurrection,  and  likewise  all  the  demons.  The  place  near- 
est Hell  is  Purgatory,  where  souls  are  purged,  or  rather 
where  they  appease  the  anger  of  God  by  tlieir  sufferings. 
He  says  that  the  same  fires  and  the  same  torments  are  alike 
in  both  these  places,  the  only  difference  between  Hell  and 
Purgatoyy  consisting  in  their  duration.  Next  to  Purgatory 
is  the  Umbo  of  those  infants  who  die  without  ha\nng  received 
the  sacrament ;  and  the  fourth  place  is  the  limbo  of  the 
Fathers  ;  that  is  to  say,  of  those  just  men  wlio  died  before 
the  death  of  Christ.  But  since  the  days  of  the  Redeemer, 
this  last  division  is  empty,  like  an  apartment  to  be  let.  A 
later  cathohc  theologist,  the  famous  Tillemont,  condemns  all 
the  illustrious  Pagans  to  the  eternal  torments  of  Hell !  be- 
cause they  lived  before  the  time  of  Jesus,  and  therefore 
could  not  be  benefited  by  the  redemption  !  Speaking  of 
young  Tiberius,  who  was  compelled  to  fall  on  his  own  sword, 
Tillemont  add-,  "  Thus  by  his  own  hand  he  ended  his  miser- 
able lifii,  to  begin  another,  the  misery  of  xohich  will  never 
end!"  Yet  history  records  nothing  bad  of  this  prince. 
Jortin  observes  that  he  added  this  reflection  in  his  later  edi- 
tion, so  that  the  good  man  as  he  grew  older  grew  more  un- 
charitable in  his  religious  notions.  It  is  in  this  manner  too 
that  the  Benedictine  editor  of  Justin  Martyr  speaks  of  the 
illustrious  pagans.     This  father,  after  highly  applauding  Soc 


284  THE   ABSENT   MAN. 

rates,  and  a  few  more  who  resembled  him,  inclines  to  think 
that  they  are  not  fixed  in  Hell.  But  the  Benedictine  editor 
takes  great  pains  to  clear  the  good  father  from  the  shameful 
imputation  of  supposing  that  a  virtuous  pagan  might  be  saved 
as  well  as  a  Benedictine  monk  !  For  a  curious  specimen  of 
this  odium  theologicum,  see  the  "  Censure  "  of  the  SorbonuQ 
on  Marmontel's  Belisarius. 

The  adverse  party,  who  were  either  philosophers  or  re- 
formers, received  all  such  information  with  great  suspicion. 
Anthony  Cornelius,  a  lawyer  in  the  sixteenth  century,  wrote 
a  small  tract,  which  was  so  effectually  suppressed,  as  a  mon- 
ster of  atheism,  that  a  copy  is  now  only  to  be  found  in  the 
hands  of  the  curious.  This  author  ridiculed  the  absurd  and 
horrid  doctrine  of  infant  damnation,  and  was  instantly  de- 
cried as  an  atheist,  and  the  printer  prosecuted  to  his  ruin  ! 
Cselius  Secundus  Curio,  a  noble  Italian,  pubhshed  a  treatise 
De  Amplitudine  beati  Megni  Dei,  to  prove  that  Heaven  has 
more  inhabitants  than  Hell,  or  in  his  own  phrase  that  the 
elect  are  more  numerous  than  the  reprobate.  However  we 
may  incline  to  smile  at  these  works,  their  design  was  benevo- 
lent. They  were  the  first  streaks  of  the  morning  light  of 
the  Reformation.  Even  such  works  assisted  mankind  to  ex- 
amine more  closely,  and  hold  in  greater  contempt,  the 
extravagant  and  pernicious  doctrines  of  the  domineering 
papistical  church. 


THE  ABSENT  MAN. 

The  character  of  Bruyere's  "  Absent  Man "  has  been 
translated  in  the  Spectator,  and  exhibited  on  the  theatre.  It 
is  supposed  to  be  a  fictitious  character,  or  one  highly  col- 
oured. It  was  well  known,  however,  to  his  contemporaries,  to 
be  the  Count  de  Brancas.  The  present  anecdotes  concern- 
ing the  same  person  have  been  unknown  to,  or  forgotten  by, 


WAX-WORK.  285 

Bruyere  ;  and  are  to  the  full  as  extraordinary  as  those  which 
characterize  Menalcas,  or  the  Absent  Man. 

The  count  was  reading  by  the  fireside,  but  Heaven  knows 
with  what  degree  of  attention,  when  the  nurse  brought  him 
his  infant  child.  He  throws  down  the  book  ;  he  takes  the 
child  in  his  arms.  He  was  playing  with  her,  when  an  im- 
portant visitor  was  announced.  Having  forgot  he  had  quitted 
his  book,  and  that  it  was  his  child  he  held  in  his  hands,  he 
hastily  flung  the  squalling  innocent  on  the  table. 

The  count  was  walking  in  the  street,  and  the  Duke  de  la 
Rochefoucault  crossed  the  way  to  speak  to  him. — "  God 
bless  thee,  poor  man  !  "  exclaimed  the  count.  Rochefoucault 
smiled,  and  was  beginning  to  address  him  : — "  Is  it  not 
enough,"  cried  the  count,  interrupting  him,  and  somewhat  in 
a  passion  ;  "  is  it  not  enough  that  I  have  said,  at  first,  I  have 
nothing  for  you  ?  Such  lazy  vagrants  as  you  hinder  a  gen- 
tleman from  walking  the  streets."  Rochefoucault  burst  into 
a  loud  laugh,  and  awakening  the  absent  man  from  his  lethar- 
gy, he  was  not  a  little  surprised,  himself,  that  he  should  have 
taken  his  friend  for  an  importunate  mendicant !  La  Fon- 
taine is  recorded  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  absent  men ; 
and  Furetiere  relates  a  most  singular  instance  of  this  absence 
of  mind.  La  Fontaine  attended  the  burial  of  one  of  his 
friends,  and  some  time  afterwards  he  called  to  visit  him.  At 
first  he  was  shocked  at  the  information  of  his  death  ;  but 
recovering  from  his  surprise,  observed — "  True  !  True  !  I 
recollect  I  went  to  his  funeral." 


WAX-WORK. 

We  have  heard  of  many  curious  deceptions  occasioned  by 
the  imitative  powers  of  wax-work.  A  series  of  anatomical 
sculptures  in  coloured  wax  was  projected  by  the  Grand  Duke 
of  Tuscany,  under  the  direction  of  Fontana.     Twenty  apart 


236  WAX-WORK. 

ments  have  been  filled  with  those  curious  imitations.  They 
represent  in  every  possible  detail,  and  in  each  successive 
stage  of  denudation,  the  organs  of  sense  and  reproduction  ; 
the  muscular,  the  vascular,  the  nervous,  and  the  bony  systenu 
They  imitate  equally  well  the  form,  and  more  exactly  the 
colouring  of  nature  than  injected  preparations ;  and  they 
have  been  employed  to  perpetuate  many  transient  phenom- 
ena of  disease,  of  which  no  other  art  could  have  made  so 
lively  a  record. 

There  is  a  species  of  wax-work,  which,  though  it  can 
hardly  claim  the  honours  of  the  fine  arts,  is  adapted  to  afford 
much  pleasure.  I  mean  figures  of  wax,  which  may  be  mod- 
elled with  great  truth  of  character. 

Menage  has  noticed  a  work  of  this  kind.  In  the  year 
1675,  the  Duke  de  Maine  received  a  gilt  cabinet,  about  the 
size  of  a  moderate  table.  On  the  door  was  inscribed,  "  The 
Apartment  of  Wit^  The  inside  exhibited  an  alcove  and  a 
long  gallery.  In  an  arm-chair  was  seated  the  figure  of  the 
duke  himself  composed  of  wax,  the  resemblance  the  most 
perfect  imaginable.  On  one  side  stood  the  Duke  de  la 
Rochefoucault,  to  whom  he  presented  a  paper  of  verses  for 
his  examination.  M.  de  Marsillac,  and  Bossuet  bishop  of 
Meaux,  were  standing  near  the  arm-chair.  In  the  alcove, 
Madame  de  Thianges  and  Madame  de  la  Fayette  sat  retired, 
reading  a  book.  Boileau,  the  satirist,  stood  at  the  door  of  the 
gallery,  hindering  seven  or  eight  bad  poets  from  entering. 
Near  Boileau  stood  Racine,  who  seemed  to  beckon  to  La 
Fontaine  to  come  forwards.  All  these  figures  were  formed 
of  wax ;  and  this  philosopliical  baby -house,  interesting  for 
the  personages  it  imitated,  might  induce  a  -msh  in  some  phi- 
losophers to  play  once  more  -with  one. 

There  was  lately  an  old  canon  at  Cologne  who  made  a  col- 
lection of  small  wax  models  of  characteristic  figures,  such  as 
personifications  of  Misery,  in  a  haggard  old  man  with  a 
scanty  crust  and  a  brown  jug  before  him  ;  or  of  Avarice,  in 
a  keen-looking  Jew  miser  counting  his  gold :  which  were 


PASQUIN  AND   MARFORIO.  287 

done  with  such  a  spirit  and  reality  that  a  Flemish  painter, 
a  Hogarth  or  Wilkie,  could  hardly  have  worked  up  the  feel- 
ing of  the  figure  more  impressively.  "  All  these  were  done 
with  truth  and  expression  which  I  could  not  have  imagined 
the  wax  capable  of  exhibiting,"  says  the  lively  writer  of  "  An 
Autumn  near  the  Rhine."  There  is  something  very  infantino 
in  this  taste  ;  but  I  lament  that  it  is  very  rarely  gratified  by 
such  close  copiers  of  nature  as  was  this  old  canon  of  Colojni« 


PASQUIN  AND  MARFORIO. 

All  the  world  have  heard  of  these  statues :  they  have 
served  as  vehicles  for  the  keenest  satire  in  a  land  of  the  most 
uncontrolled  despotism.  The  statue  of  Pasquin  (from  whence 
the  word  pasquinade )  and  that  of  Marforio  are  placed  in 
Rome  in  two  different  quarters.  Marforio  is  an  ancient 
statue  of  Mars  found  in  the  Forum,  which  the  people  have 
corrupted  into  Marforio.  Pasquin  is  a  marble  status,  greatly 
mutilated,  supposed  to  be  the  figure  of  a  gladiator.  To  one 
or  other  of  these  statues,  during  the  concealment  of  the  night, 
are  affixed  those  satires  or  lampoons  which  the  authors  wish 
should  be  dispersed  about  Rome  without  any  danger  to  them- 
selves. When  Marforio  is  attacked,  Pasquin  comes  to  his 
succour ;  and  when  Pasquin  is  the  sufferer,  he  finds  in  31ar- 
forio  a  constant  defender.  Tiius,  by  a  thrust  and  a  parry, 
the  most  serious  matters  are  disclosed :  and  the  most  illus- 
trious personages  are  attacked  by  their  enemies,  and  defended 
by  their  friends. 

Misson,  in  his  Travels  in  Italy,  gives  the  following  af.'count 
of  the  origin  of  the  name  of  the  statue  of  Pasquin  : — 

A  satirical  tailor,  who  lived  at  Rome,  and  whose  name  was 
Pasquin,  amused  himself  by  severe  raillery,  liberally  bestowed 
on  those  who  passed  by  his  shop  ;  which  in  time  became  the 
lounge  of  the  newsmongers.     The  tailor  had  precisely  the 


288  PASQUIN  AND   MARFORIO. 

talents  to  head  a  regiment  of  satirical  wits  ;  and  had  he  had 
time  to  publish,  he  would  have  been  the  Peter  Pindar  of  his 
day  ;  but  his  genius  seems  to  have  been  satisfied  to  rest 
cross-legged  on  his  shopboard.  When  any  lanapoons  or 
amusing  bon-mots  were  current  at  Rome,  they  were  usuaUy 
called,  from  his  shop,  pasquinades.  After  his  death  this 
statue  of  an  ancient  gladiator  was  found  under  the  pavemc^nt 
of  liis  shop.  It  was  soon  set  up,  and  by  universal  consent 
was  inscribed  with  his  name  ;  and  they  still  attempt  to  raise 
him  from  the  dead,  and  keep  the  caustic  tailor  alive,  in  the 
marble  gladiator  of  wit. 

There  is  a  very  rare  Avork,  with  this  title : — "  Pasquillorum 
Tomi  Duo ; "  the  first  containing  the  verse,  and  the  second 
the  prose  pasquinades,  published  at  Basle,  1544.  The  rarity 
of  this  collection  of  satirical  pieces  is  entirely  owing  to  the 
arts  of  suppression  practised  by  the  papal  government. 
Sallengre,  in  his  literary  Memoirs,  has  given  an  account  of 
this  work  ;  his  own  copy  had  formerly  belonged  to  Daniel 
Heinsius,  who,  in  two  verses  written  in  his  hand,  describes 
its  rarity  and  the  price  it  cost : — 

Roma  meos  fratres  igni  dedit,  unica  Phoenix 
Vivo,  aureisque  venio  centum  Heinsio. 

"  Rome  gave  my  brothers  to  the  flames,  but  I  survive  a  solitary  Phoenix. 
Heinsius  bought  me  for  a  hundred  golden  ducats." 

This  collection  contains  a  great  number  of  pieces  composed 
at  different  times,  against  the  popes,  cardinals,  &c.  They 
are  not  indeed  materials  for  the  historian,  and  they  must  be 
taken  with  grains  of  allowance.  We  find  sarcastic  epigrams 
on  Leo  X.,  and  the  infamous  Lucretia,  daughter  of  Alexander 
VI.:  even  the  corrupt  Romans  of  the  day  were  capable  of 
expressing  themselves  with  the  utmost  freedom.  Of  Alex« 
ander  VI.  we  have  an  apology  for  his  conduct : 

Vendit  Alexander  claves,  altaria,  Christum ; 
Emerat  ille  prius,  vendere  jure  potest. 

"Alexander  sells  the  keys,  the  altars,  and  Chnst; 
As  he  bouyht  them  first,  he  had  a  right  to  sell  (hem I" 


PASQUIN  AND   MARFORIO.  289 

On  Lucre  tia : — 

Hoc  tumulo  dorrait  Lucretia  nomine,  sed  re 
Thais;  Alexandri  filia,  sponsa,  nurus! 

"  Beneath  this  stone  sleeps  Lucretia  by  name,  but  by  nature  Thais;  the 
daughter,  the  wife,  and  the  daughter-in-law  of  Alexander!  " 

Leo  X.  was  a  frequent  butt  for  the  arrows  of  Pasquin  :-^ 

Sacra  sub  extrema,  si  forte  requiritis,  hora 
Cur  Leo  non  potuit  sumere ;  vendiderat. 

"  Do  you  ask  why  Leo  did  not  take  the  sacrament  on  his  death-bed  ? — 
How  could  he?    He  had  sold  it !  " 

Many  of  these  satirical  touches  depend  on  puns.  Urban 
Vir.,  one  of  the  Barberini  family,  pillaged  the  Pantheon  of 
brass  to  make  cannon,  on  which  occasion  Pasquin  was  made 
to  say  : — 

Quod  non  fecerunt  Barhari  Romse,  fecit  Barberini. 

On  Clement  VII.,  whose  death  was  said  to  be  occasioned 
by  the  prescriptions  of  his  physician  : — 

Curtius  occidit  Clementem;  Curtius  auro 
Donandus,  per  quern  publica  parta  salus. 

"  Dr.  Curtius  has  killed  the  pope  by  his  remedies;  he  ought  to  be  re- 
munerated as  a  man  who  has  cured  the  state." 

The  following,  on  Paul  III.,  are  singular  conceptions : — 

Papa  Medusreura  caput  est,  coma  turba  Nepotum; 
Perseu  csede  caput,  Cassaries  periit. 

"  The  pope  is  the  head  of  Medusa;  the  horrid  tresses  are  his  nephews; 
Perseus,  cut  off  the  head,  and  then  we  shall  be  rid  of  these  serpent-locks." 

Another  is  sarcastic — 

Ut  canerent  data  multa  olim  sunt  Vatibus  aera: 
Ut  taceam,  quantum  tu  mihi,  Paule,  dabis  ? 

"  Ucretofore  money  was  given  to  poets  that  they  might  sing :  how  much 
will  you  give  me,  Paul,  to  be  silent?  " 

This  collection  contains,  among  other  classes,  passages  from 
the  Scriptures  which  have  been  applied  to  the  court  of  Rome  ; 
to  different  nations  and  persons ;   and  one  of  ^'■Sortes    Vir- 

VOL.    I.  19 


290       FEMALE  DEAUTY  AND  ORNAMENTS. 

giliance  per  Pasqidllum  coUectce" — passages  from  Virgil  frc« 
quently  happily  applied ;  and  those  who  are  curious  in 
the  history  of  those  times  will  find  this  portion  interest- 
ing. The  work  itself  is  not  quite  so  rare  as  Daniel  Hein- 
sius  imagined ;  the  price  might  now  reach  from  five  to  ten 
guineas. 

The  satirical  statues  are  placed  at  opposite  ends  of  the 
town,  so  that  there  is  always  sufficient  time  to  make  Marfori(.i 
reply  to  the  gibes  and  jeers  of  Pasquin  in  walking  from  one 
to  the  other.  They  are  an  ingenious  substitute  for  publishing 
to  the  world,  what  no  Roman  newspaper  would  dare  to  print. 


FEMALE  BEAUTY  AND  ORNAMENTS. 

The  ladies  in  Japan  gild  their  teeth  ;  and  those  of  the 
Indies  paint  them  red.  The  pearl  of  teeth  must  be  dyed 
black  to  be  beautiful  in  Guzerat.  In  Greenland  the  women 
colour  their  faces  with  blue  and  yellow.  However  fresh  the 
complexion  of  a  Muscovite  may  be,  she  would  think  herself 
very  ugly  if  she  was  not  plastered  over  with  paint.  The 
Chinese  must  have  their  feet  as  diminutive  as  those  of  the 
she-goat ;  and  to  render  them  thus,  their  youth  is  passed  in 
tortures.  In  ancient  Persia  an  aquiline  nose  was  often 
thought  worthy  of  the  crown  ;  and  if  there  was  any  comp(j- 
tition  between  two  princes,  the  people  generally  went  by  this 
criterion  of  majesty.  In  some  countries,  the  mothers  break 
the  noses  of  their  children  ;  and  in  others  press  the  head 
between  two  boards,  that  it  may  become  square.  The  mod- 
ern Persians  have  a  strong  aversion  to  red  hair :  the  Turks, 
on  the  contrary,  are  warm  admirers  of  it.  The  female  Hot- 
tentot receives  from  the  hand  of  her  lover,  not  silks  nor 
wreaths  of  flowers,  but  warm  guts  and  reeking  tripe,  to  dress 
herself  with  enviable  ornaments. 

In  China  small  round  eyes  are  liked ;  and  the  girls  are 


FEMALE   BEAUTY   AND   ORNAMENTS.  291 

continually  plucking  their  eye-brows,  that  they  may  be  thin 
and  long.  The  Turkish  women  dip  a  gold  brush  in  the  tine 
ture  of  a  blnck  drug,  which  they  pass  over  their  eye-brows. 
]t  is  too  visible  by  day,  but  looks  shining  by  niglit.  Thej 
tinge  their  nails  with  a  rose-colour.  An  African  beauty  must 
liave  small  eyes,  thick  lips,  a  large  flat  nose,  and  a  skin 
beautifully  black.  The  Emperor  of  Monomotapa  would  not 
change  his  amiable  negress  for  the  most  brilliant  European 
beauty. 

An  ornament  for  the  nose  appears  to  us  perfectly  unneces- 
sary. The  Peruvians,  however,  think  otherwise;  and  they 
hang  on  it  a  weighty  ring,  the  thickness  of  which  is  propor- 
tioned by  the  rank  of  their  husbands.  The  custom  of  boring 
it,  as  our  ladies  do  their  ears,  is  very  common  in  several 
nations.  Through  the  perforation  are  hung  various  materials ; 
such  as  green  crystal,  gold,  stones,  a  single  and  sometimes  a 
great  number  of  gold  rings.  This  is  rather  troublesome  to 
them  in  blowing  their  noses ;  and  the  fact  is,  as  some  have 
informed  us,  that  the  Indian  ladies  never  perform  this  very 
useful  operation. 

The  female  head-dress  is  carried  in  some  countries  to  sin- 
gular extravagance.  The  Chinese  fair  carries  on  her  head 
the  figure  of  a  certain  bird.  This  bird  is  composed  of  cop- 
per or  of  gold,  according  to  the  quality  of  the  person ;  the 
wings  spread  out,  fall  over  the  front  of  the  head-dress,  and 
conceal  the  temples.  The  tail,  long  and  open,  forms  a  beau- 
tiful tuft  of  feathers.  The  beak  covers  the  top  of  the  nose  ; 
the  neck  is  fastened  to  the  body  of  the  artificial  animal  by  a 
spring,  that  it  may  the  more  freely  play,  and  tremble  at  the 
slightest  motion. 

The  extravagance  of  the  Myantses  is  far  more  ridiculous 
than  the  above.  They  carry  on  their  heads  a  slight  board, 
rather  longer  than  a  foot,  and  about  six  inches  broad  ;  with 
this  they  cover  their  hair,  and  seal  it  with  wax.  They  can- 
not lie  down,  or  lean,  without  keeping  the  neck  straight ;  and 
the  country  being  very  woody,  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find 


2J2  MODERN  PLATONISM. 

them  with  their  head-dress  entangled  in  the  trees.  "When- 
ever they  comb  their  hair,  they  pass  an  hour  by  the  fire  in 
melting  the  wax ;  but  this  combing  is  only  performed  once 
or  twice  a  year. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  land  of  Natal  wear  caps  or  bon- 
nets, from  six  to  ten  inches  high,  composed  of  the  fat  of 
oxen.  They  then  gradually  anoint  the  head  with  a  purer 
grease,  which  mixing  with  the  hair,  fastens  these  bonnets  for 
their  lives. 


MODERN   PLATONISM. 

Erasmus  in  his  Age  of  Religious  Revolution  expressed 
an  alarm,  which  in  some  shape  has  been  since  realized.  He 
strangely,  yet  acutely  observes,  that  "  literature  began  to  make 
a  great  and  happy  progress  ;  but,"  he  adds,  "  I  fear  two 
things — that  the  study  of  Hebrew  will  promote  Judaism^ 
and  the  study  of  philology  will  revive  paganism."  He 
speaks  to  the  same  purpose  in  the  Adages,  c.  189,  as  Jortin 
observes.  Blackwell,  in  his  curious  Life  of  Homer,  after 
showing  that  the  ancient  oracles  were  the  fountains  of 
knowledge,  and  that  the  votaries  of  the  god  of  Delphi  had 
their  faith  confirmed  by  the  oracle's  perfect  acquaintance 
with  the  country,  parentage,  and  fortunes  of  the  suppliant, 
and  many  predictions  verified ;  that  besides  all  this,  the 
oracles  that  have  reached  us  discover  a  wide  knowledge  of 
everything  relating  to  Greece ; — this  learned  writer  is  at  a 
loss  to  account  for  a  knowledge  that  he  thinks  has  sometliing 
divine  in  it :  it  was  a  knowledge  to  be  found  no  where  in 
Greece  but  among  the  Oracles.  He  would  account  for  this 
phenomenon,  by  supposing  there  existed  a  succession  of 
learned  men  devoted  to  this  purpose.  He  says,  "  Either  we 
must  admit  the  knowledge  of  the  priests,  or  turn  converts  to 
the  ancients,  and  believe  in  the  omniscience  of  Apollo,  which 
in  this  age  I  know  nobody  in  hazard  of"     Yet  to  the  aston- 


MODERN  PLATONISM.  203 

ishment  of  tliis  writer,  were  he  now  living,  he  would  have 
witnessed  this  incredible  fact !  Even  Erasmus  himself  might 
liave  wondered. 

We  discover  the  origin  of  modern  platonism,  as  it  may 
\je  distinguished,  an\ong  the  Italians.  About  the  middle  of 
ihe  fifteenth  century,  some  time  before  the  Turks  had  become 
masters  of  Constantinople,  a  great  number  of  philosophers 
flourished.  Gemisthus  Pletho^  was  one  distinguished  by  his 
genius,  his  erudition,  and  his  fervent  passion  for  platonism. 
Mr.  Roscoe  notices  Pletho :  "  His  discourses  had  so  power- 
ful an  effect  upon  Cosmo  de'  Medici,  who  was  his  constant 
auditor,  that  he  established  an  academy  at  Florence  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  cultivating  this  new  and  more  elevated 
species  of  philosophy."  The  learned  Marsilio  Ficino  trans- 
lated Plotinus,  that  great  archimage  of  platonic  Mysticism. 
Such  were  Pletho's  eminent  abilities,  that  in  his  old  age 
those  whom  his  novel  system  had  greatly  irritated  either 
feared  or  respected  him.  He  had  scarcely  breathed  his  last 
when  they  began  to  abuse  Plato  and  our  Pletho.  The  fol- 
lowing account  is  written  by  George  of  Trebizond. 

"  Lately  has  risen  amongst  us  a  second  JNIahomet :  and 
this  second,  if  we  do  not  take  care,  will  exceed  in  greatness 
the  first,  by  the  dreadful  consequences  of  his  wicked  doctrine, 
as  the  first  has  exceeded  Plato.  A  disciple  and  rival  of  this 
philosopher  in  philosophy,  in  eloquence,  and  in  science,  he 
had  fixed  his  residence  in  the  Peloponnese.  His  common 
name  was  Gemisihus,  but  he  assumed  that  of  Pletho.  Per- 
haps Gemisthus,  to  make  us  believe  more  easily  that  he  was 
descended  from  heaven,  and  to  engage  us  to  receive  more 
readily  his  doctrine  and  his  new  law,  wished  to  change  his  name, 
according  to  the  manner  of  the  ancient  patriarchs,  of  whom 
it  is  said,  that  at  the  time  the  name  was  changed  they  were 
called  to  the  greatest  things.  He  has  written  with  no  vulgar 
art,  and  with  no  common  elegance.  He  has  given  new  rules 
for  the  conduct  of  life,  and  for  the  regulation  of  human 
affairs  ;  and  at  the  same  time  has  vomited  forth  a  great  nura- 


294  MODERN  PLATONISM. 

ber  of  blasjihemies  against  the  Catholic  religion.  He  was 
so  zealous  a  platonist  that  he  entertained  no  other  sentiments 
than  those  of  Ph\to,  concerning  the  nature  of  the  gods,  souls, 
sacrifices,  &c.  I  have  heard  him  myself,  when  we  were  to- 
gether at  Florence,  say,  that  in  a  few  years  all  men  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  would  embrace  with  one  common  consent, 
and  witli  one  mind,  a  single  and  simple  religion,  at  the  first 
instructions  which  should  be  given  by  a  single  preaching. 
And  when  I  asked  him  if  it  would  be  the  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ,  or  that  of  Mahomet  ?  he  answered,  '  Neither  one  nor 
the  other ;  but  a  third,  which  will  not  greatly  differ  from 
•paganism.^  These  words  I  heard  with  so  much  indignation, 
that  since  that  time  I  have  always  hated  him :  I  look  upon 
him  as  a  dangerous  viper ;  and  I  cannot  think  of  him  with- 
out abhorrence." 

The  pious  writer  might  have  been  satisfied  to  have  be- 
stowed a  smile  of  pity  or  contempt. 

When  Pletho  died,  full  of  years  and  honours,  the  malice 
of  his  enemies  collected  all  its  venom.  This  circumstance 
seems  to  prove  that  his  abilities  musr  have  been  great  indeed, 
to  have  kept  such  crowds  silent.  Several  catholic  writers 
lament  that  his  book  was  burnt,  and  regret  the  loss  of  Pletho's 
work ;  which,  they  say,  was  not  designed  to  subvert  the 
Christian  religion,  but  only  to  unfold  the  system  of  Plato, 
and  to  collect  what  he  and  other  philosophers  had  written  on 
religion  and  politics. 

Of  his  religious  scheme,  the  reader  may  judge  by  this 
summary  account.  The  general  title  of  the  volume  ran 
thus :  "  This  book  treats  of  the  laws  of  the  best  form  of 
government,  and  what  all  men  must  observe  in  their  public; 
and  private  stations,  to  live  together  in  the  most  perfect,  the 
most  innocent,  and  the  most  happy  manner."  The  wliole 
was  divided  into  three  books.  The  titles  of  the  chapters 
where  paganism  was  openly  inculcated  are  reported  by  Gen- 
nadius,  s\'ho  condemned  it  to  the  fiames,  but  who  has  not 
thought  proper  to  enter  into  the   manner  of  his   arguments. 


MODERN  PLATONISM.  295 

Tlie  extravagance  of  this  new  legislator  appeared,  above  all, 
in  the  articles  which  concerned  religion.  He  acknowledges 
a  plurality  of  gods :  some  superior,  whom  he  placed  above 
the  heavens ;  and  the  others  inferior,  on  this  side  the  heavens 
The  first  existing  from  the  remotest  antiquity ;  the  others 
younger,  and  of  different  ages.  He  gave  a  king  to  all  these 
gods,  and  he  called  him  ZET2,  or  Jupiter;  as  the  pagans 
named  this  power  formerly.  According  to  him,  the  stars  had 
a  soul ;  the  demons  were  not  malignant  spirits ;  and  the  world 
was  eternal.  He  established  polygamy,  and  was  even  inclined 
to  a  community  of  women.  All  his  work  was  filled  with  such 
reveries,  and  with  not  a  few  impieties,  which  my  pious  author 
has  not  ventured  to  give. 

What  %vere  the  intentions  of  Pletho?  If  the  work  was 
only  an  arranged  system  of  paganism,  or  the  platonic  philos- 
ophy, it  might  have  been  an  innocent,  if  not  a  curious  volume. 
He  was  learned  and  humane,  and  had  not  passed  his  life 
entirely  in  the  solitary  recesses  of  his  study. 

To  strain  human  curiosity  to  the  utmost  limits  of  human 
credibility,  a  modern  Pletho  has  risen  in  Mr.  Thomas  Taylor, 
who,  consonant  to  the  platonic  philosophy,  in  the  present  day 
religiously  professes  polytheism  !  At  the  close  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  be  it  recorded,  were  published  many  volumes, 
in  which  the  author  affects  to  avow  himself  a  zealous  Platon- 
ist,  and  asserts  that  he  can  prove  that  the  Christian  religion 
is  "  a  bastardized  and  barbarous  Platonism  !  "  The  divinities 
of  Plato  are  the  divinities  to  be  adored,  and  we  are  to  be 
taught  to  call  God,  Jupiter ;  the  Virgin,  Venus ;  and  Christ, 
Cupid !  The  Piad  of  Homer  allegorized,  is  converted  into  a 
Greek  bible  of  the  arcana  of  nature!  Extraordinary  as  this 
literary  lunacy  may  appear,  we  must  observe,  that  it  stands 
not  singular  in  the  annals  of  the  history  of  the  human  mind. 
The  Florentine  academy,  which  Cosmo  founded,  had,  no 
doubt,  some  classical  enthusiasts ;  but  who,  perhaps,  according 
to  the  political  character  of  their  country,  were  prudent  and 
reserved.      The   platonic  furor,   however,   appears    to   have 


296  MODERN   PLATONISM. 

reached  other  countries.  In  the  reign  of  Louis  XII.  a 
scholar  named  Hemon  de  la  Fosse,  a  native  of  Abbeville,  by 
continually  reading  the  Greek  and  Latin  writers,  became 
mad  enough  to  persuade  himself  that  it  was  impossible  that 
the  religion  of  such  great  geniuses  as  Homer,  Cicero,  and 
Virgil  was  a  false  one.  On  the  25th  of  August,  1503,  being 
at  church,  he  suddenly  snatched  the  host  from  the  hands  of 
the  priest,  at  the  moment  it  was  raised,  exclaiming — "  What ! 
always  this  folly ! "  He  was  immediately  seized.  In  the 
liope  that  he  would  abjure  his  extravagant  errors,  they  de- 
layed his  punishment ;  but  no  exhortation  nor  entreaties 
availed.  He  persisted  in  maintaining  that  Jupiter  was  the 
sovereign  God  of  the  universe,  and  that  there  was  no  other 
paradise  than  the  Elysian  fields.  He  was  burnt  alive,  after 
having  first  had  his  tongue  pierced,  and  his  hand  cut  off. 
Thus  perished  an  ardent  and  learned  youth,  who  ought  only 
to  have  been  condemned  as  a  Bedlamite. 

Dr.  More,  the  most  rational  of  our  modern  Platonists, 
abounds,  however,  with  the  most  extravagant  reveries,  and 
was  inflated  with  egotism  and  enthusiasm,  as  much  as  any  of 
his  mystic  predecessors.  He  conceived  that  he  communed 
with  the  Divinity  itself!  that  he  had  been  shot  as  a  fiery 
dart  into  the  world,  and  he  hoped  he  had  hit  the  mark.  He 
carried  his  self-conceit  to  such  extravagance,  that  he  thought 
his  urine  smelt  like  violets,  and  his  body  in  the  spring  season 
had  a  sweet  odour  ;  a  perfection  peculiar  to  himself.  These 
visionaries  indulge  the  most  fanciful  vanity. 

The  "  sweet  odours,"  and  that  of  "  the  violets,"  might, 
however,  have  been  real — for  they  mark  a  certain  stage  of 
the  disease  of  diabetes,  as  appears  in  a  medical  tract  by  the 
elder  Dr.  Latham. 


ANECDOTES   OF   FASHION.  297 


ANECDOTES   OF  FASHION. 

A  vol  iiME  on  this  subject  might  be  made  very  curious 
and  entertaining,  for  our  ancestors  were  not  less  vacillating, 
and  perhaps  more  capriciously  grotesque,  though  with  infi- 
nitely less  taste,  than  the  present  generation.  Were  a 
philo>opher  and  an  artist,  as  well  as  an  antiquary,  to  compose 
such  a  woi'k,  much  diversified  entertainment,  and  some 
curious  investigation  of  the  progress  of  the  arts  and  taste, 
would  doubtless  be  the  result;  the  subject  otherwise  appears 
of  trifling  value  ;  the  veiy  farthing  pieces  of  history. 

The  origin  of  many  fashions  was  in  the  endeavour  to 
conceal  some  deformity  of  the  inventor :  hence  the  cushions, 
ruffs,  hoops,  and  other  monstrous  devices,  if  a  reigning 
beauty  chanced  to  have  an  unequal  hip,  those  "fvho  had  very 
handsome  hips  would  load  them  with  that  fa'ist-  rump  which 
the  other  was  compelled  by  the  unkindnes',  of  nature  to 
substitute.  Patches  were  invented  in  England  in  the  reign 
of  Edward  VI.  by  a  foreign  lady,  who  in  this  manner  ingen- 
iously covered  a  wen  on  her  neck.  Full-bottomed  wigs  were 
invented  by  a  French  barber,  one  Duviller,  whose  name  they 
perpetuated,  for  the  purpose  of  concealing  an  elevation  in  the 
shoulder  of  the  Dauphin.  Charles  VII.  of  France  introduced 
long  coats  to  hide  his  ill-made  legs.  Shoes  with  very  long 
points,  full  two  feet  in  length,  were  invented  by  Henry 
Plantagenet,  Duke  of  Anjou,  to  conceal  a  large  excrescence 
on  one  of  his  feet.  When  Francis  I.  was  obliged  to  wear 
his  hair  short,  owing  to  a  wound  he  received  in  the  head,  it 
became  a  pi'evailing  fashion  at  court.  Others,  on  (he  con- 
trary, adapted  fashions  to  set  off  their  peculiar  beauties :  as 
Isabella  of  Bavaria,  remarkable  for  her  gallantry,  and  the 
fairness  of  her  complexion,  introduced  the  fashion  of  leaving 
the  shoulders  and  part  of  the  neck  uncovered. 

Fashions  have  frequently  originated  from  circumstances 
as  silly  as  the  following  one.    Isabella,  daughter  of  Philip  II. 


298  ANECDOTES   OF   FASHION. 

and  wife  of  the  Archduke  Albert,  vowed  not  to  change  Iier 
linen  till  Ostend  was  taken  ;  this  siege,  unluckily  lor  her 
comfort,  lasted  three  years  ;  and  the  supposed  colour  of  the 
archduchess's  linen  gave  rise  to  a  fashionable  colour,  hence 
called  I'Isabeau,  or  the  Isabella ;  a  kind  of  whitish-yellow- 
dingy.  Sometimes  they  originate  in  some  temporary  event ; 
as  after  the  battle  of  Steenkirk,  where  the  allies  wore  large 
cravats,  by  whieli  the  French  frequently  seized  hold  of  them, 
a  circumstance  perpetuated  on  the  medals  of  Louis  XIV., 
cravats  were  called  Steenkirks ;  and  after  the  battle  of 
Ramilies,  wigs  received  that  denomination. 

The  court,  in  all  ages  and  in  every  country,  are  the  mod- 
ellers of  fashions  ;  so  that  all  the  ridicule,  of  which  these  are 
so  susceptible,  must  fall  on  them,  and  not  upon  their  servile 
imitators  the  citizens.  This  complaint  is  made  even  so  far 
back  as  in  1586,  by  Jean  des  Caures,  an  old  French  moralist, 
who,  in  declaiming  against  the  fashions  of  his  day,  notices 
one,  of  the  ladies  carrying  mirrors  Jixed  to  their  waists, 
which  seemed  to  employ  their  eyes  in  perpetual  activity. 
From  this  mode  will  result,  according  to  honest  Des  Caures, 
their  eternal  damnation.  "  Alas  !  (he  exclaims)  in  what  an 
age  do  we  live  :  to  see  such  depravity  which  we  see,  that 
induces  them  even  to  bring  into  church  these  scandalous  mir- 
rors hanging  about  their  waists  !  Let  aU  histories,  divine, 
human,  and  profane,  be  consulted ;  never  will  it  be  found 
that  these  objects  of  vanity  were  ever  thus  brought  into  pub- 
lic by  the  most  meretricious  of  the  sex.  It  is  true,  at  present 
none  but  the  ladies  of  the  court  venture  to  wear  them ;  but 
long  it  will  not  be  before  every  citizens  daughter  and  every 
female  servant,  will  have  them  !  "  Such  in  all  times  has 
been  the  rise  and  decline  of  fashion  ;  and  the  absurd  mimicry 
of  the  citizens,  even  of  the  lowest  classes,  to  their  very  ruin, 
in  straining  to  rival  the  newest  fashion,  has  mortified  and 
galled  the  courtier. 

On  this  subject  old  Camden,  in  his  Remains,  relates  a  story 
of  a  trick  played  off  on  a  citizen,  which  I  give  in  the  plain 


ANECDOTES    OF   FASHION.  299 

ness  of  his  own  venerable  style.  "  Sir  Philip  Calthrop 
purged  John  Drake?,  the  shoemaker  of  Norwich,  in  the  time 
of  King  Henry  VIII.  of  \.\iQ  proud  himour  which  onr  people 
have  to  be  of  the  genflemeii's  cat.  This  knight  bought  on  a 
time  as  much  fine  French  tawny  cloth  as  should  make  him  a 
gown,  and  sent  it  to  the  taylor's  to  be  made.  John  Drakes, 
a  shoemaker  of  that  town,  coming  to  tliis  said  taylor's,  and 
seeing  the  knight's  gown  cloth  lying  there,  liking  it  well, 
caused  the  taylor  to  buy  him  as  much  of  the  same  cloth  and 
price  to  the  same  intent,  and  fui'ther  bade  him  to  make  it  of 
the  same  fashion  that  the  knight  would  have  his  made  of. 
Not  long  after,  the  knight  coming  to  the  taylor's  to  take 
measure  of  his  gown,  perceiving  the  like  cloth  lying  there, 
asked  of  the  tjiylor  whose  it  was  ?  Quoth  the  taylor,  it  is 
John  Di'akes's  the  shoemaker,  who  will  have  it  made  of  the 
self-same  fashion  that  your' s  is  made  of!  'Well!'  said  the 
knight,  '  in  good  time  be  it !  I  will  have  mine  made  as  full 
of  cuts  as  thy  shears  can  make  it.'  '  It  shall  be  done  ! '  said 
the  taylor ;  whereupon,  because  the  time  drew  near,  he  made 
haste  to  finish  both  their  garments.  John  Drakes  had  no 
time  to  go  to  the  taylor's  till  Christmas-day,  for  serving  his 
customers,  when  he  hoped  to  have  worn  his  gown  ;  perceiv- 
ing the  same  to  he  full  of  cuts  began  to  swear  at  the  taylor, 
for  the  making  his  go\vn  after  that  sort.  '  I  have  done 
nothing,'  quoth  the  taylor,  '  but  that  you  bid  me  ;  for  as  Sir 
Philip  Calthrop's  garment  is,  even  so  have  I  made  yours  ! ' 
'  By  my  latchet ! '  quoth  John  Drakes,  '  /  will  never  wear 
gentlemen's  fashions  again  /  '  " 

Sometimes  fashions  are  quite  reversed  in  their  use  in  one 
age  from  another.  Bags,  when  first  in  fashion  in  France, 
were  only  worn  en  deshabille  ;  in  visits  of  ceremony,  the  hair 
was  tied  by  a  riband  and  floated  over  the  shoulders,  which  is 
exactly  reversed  in  the  present  fashion.  In  the  year  1 73o 
the  men  had  no  hats  but  a  little  chapeau  de  bras;  in  1745 
they  wore  a  very  small  hat ;  in  1755  they  wore  an  enormous 
one,  as  may  be  seen  in  Jeffrey's  curious  "  Collection  of  HabiLf 


300  ANECDOTES   OF   FASfflON. 

in  all  Nations."  Old  Puttenham,  in  "  The  Art  of  Poesie,'* 
p.  239,  on  the  present  topic  gives  some  curious  information. 
"  Henry  VIII.  caused  his  own  head,  and  all  his  courtiers,  to 
be  polled,  and  liis  beard  to  be  cut  short  ;  before  that  time  it 
was  thought  more  decent,  both  for  old  men  and  young,  to  be 
all  shaiien,  and  weare  long  haire,  either  rounded  or  square. 
Now  again  at  this  time  (Elizabeth's  reign),  the  young  gen- 
tlemen of  the  court  have  taken  up  the  long  haire  trayling  on 
their  shoulders,  and  tliink  this  more  decent;  for  ^\hat  respect 
I  would  be  glad  to  know." 

"Wlien  the  fair  sex  were  accustomed  to  behold  their  lovers 
with  beards,  the  sight  of  a  shaved  chin  excited  feelings  of 
horror  and  aversion ;  as  much  indeed  as,  in  this  less  heroic 
age,  would  a  gallant  whose  luxuriant  beard  should 

"  Stream  like  a  meteor  to  the  troubled  air." 

When  Louis  VII.,  to  obey  the  injunctions  of  his  bishops, 
cropped  his  hair,  and  shaved  his  beard,  Eleanor,  his  consort, 
found  him,  with  this  unusual  appearance,  very  ridiculous,  and 
soon  very  contemptible.  She  revenged  herself  as  she  thought 
proper,  and  the  poor  shaved  king  obtained  a  divorce.  She 
then  married  the  Count  of  Anjou,  afterwards  our  Henry  II. 
She  had  for  her  marriage  dower  the  rich  provinces  of  Poitou 
and  Guienne ;  and  this  was  the  origin  of  those  wars  which 
for  three  hundred  years  ravaged  France,  and  cost  the  French 
three  millions  of  men.  All  which,  probably,  had  never  oc- 
curred had  Louis  VII.  not  been  so  rash  as  to  crop  his  head 
and  shave  his  beard,  by  which  he  became  so  disgustful  in 
the  eyes  of  our  Queen  Eleanor. 

We  cannot  pei'haps  sympathize  with  the  feelings  of  her 
Majesty,  though  at  Constantinople  she  might  not  have  been 
considered  unreasonable.  There  must  be  something  more 
powerful  in  beards  and  mustachios  than  we  are  quite  aware 
of;  for  when  these  were  in  fashion — and  long  after  this  was 
written — the  fashion  has  returned  on  us — with  what  enthu- 
siasm were  they  not  contemplated  !     When  mustachios  were 


ANECDOTES   OF  FASHION  301 

in  geneial  use,  an  author,  in  his  Elements  of  Education,  pub- 
lished in  1 640,  thinks  that  "  hairy  excrement,"  as  Ai-mado  in 
"  Love's  Labour  Lost  "  calls  it,  contributed  to  make  men  val- 
orous. He  says,  "  I  have  a  favourable  opinion  of  that  young 
gentleman  who  is  curious  in  fine  mustachios.  The  time  he 
employs  in  adjusting,  dressing,  and  curling  them,  is  no  lost 
time ;  for  the  more  he  contemplates  his  mustachios,  the  more 
his  mind  will  cherish  and  be  animated  by  masculine  and 
courageous  notions."  The  best  reason  that  could  be  given 
for  wearing  the  longest  and  largest  beard  of  any  Englishman 
was  that  of  a  woi'thy  clergyman  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  "  that 
no  act  of  his  life  might  be  unworthy  of  the  gravity  of  his 
appearance." 

The  grandfather  of  IVIrs.  Thomas,  the  Corinna  of  Crom- 
well, the  literary  friend  of  Pope,  by  her  account,  "  was  very 
nice  in  the  mode  of  that  age,  his  valet  being  some  hours 
every  morning  in  starching  his  beard  and  curling  his  tvhis- 
kers  ;  during  which  time  he  was  always  read  to."  Taylor, 
the  water  poet,  humorously  describes  the  great  variety  of 
beards  in  his  time,  which  extract  may  be  found  in  Grey's 
Hudibras,  Vol.  I.  p.  300.  The  beard  dmndled  gradually 
under  the  two  Charleses,  till  it  was  reduced  into  whiskers, 
and  became  extinct  in  the  reign  of  James  II.,  as  if  its  fatal- 
ity had  been  connected  with  that  of  the  house  of  Stuart. 

The  hair  has  in  all  ages  been  an  endless  topic  for  the 
declamation  of  the  moralist,  and  the  favourite  object  of  fesh- 
ion.  If  the  beau  monde  wore  their  hair  luxuriant,  or  tludr 
wig  enormous,  the  preachers,  in  Charles  the  Second's  reign, 
instantly  were  seen  in  the  pulpit  \nih  their  hair  cut  shorter, 
and  their  sermon  longer,  in  consequence  ;  respect  was,  how- 
ever, paid  by  the  world  to  the  size  of  the  wig,  in  spite  of  the 
hair-cutter  in  the  pulpit.  Our  judges,  and  till  lately  our  phy- 
sicians, well  knew  its  magical  effect.  In  the  reign  of  Charles 
II.  the  hair-dress  of  the  ladies  was  very  elaborate  ;  it  was 
not  only  curled  and  frizzled  with  the  nicest  art,  but  set  off 
with   certain   artificial  curls,  then  too  emphatically  known  by 


302  A^'ECDOTES   OF   FASfflON. 

the  pathetic  terms  of  heart-breakers  and  love-lochs.  So  late 
as  William  and  Mary,  lads,  and  even  children,  wore  wngs  ; 
and  if  they  had  not  wigs,  they  curled  their  hair  to  resemble 
this  fashionable  ornament.  Women  then  were  the  hair- 
dressers. 

There  are  flagrant  follies  in  fashion  which  must  be  endured 
while  they  reign,  and  which  never  appear  ridiculous  till  they 
are  out  of  fashion.  In  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  of  France, 
they  could  not  exist  without  an  abundant  use  of  comfits.  All 
the  world,  the  grave  and  the  gay,  carried  in  their  pockets  a 
conijit-hox,  as  we  do  snuff-boxes.  They  used  them  even  on 
the  most  solemn  occasions  ;  when  the  Duke  of  Guise  was 
shot  at  Blois,  he  was  found  with  his  comfit-box  in  his  hand. — 
Fashions  indeed  have  been  carried  to  so  extravagant  a  length, 
as  to  have  become  a  public  offence,  and  to  have  required  the 
mterference  of  government.  Short  and  tight  breeches  Avere 
so  much  the  rage  in  France,  that  Charles  V.  was  compelled 
to  banish  this  disgusting  mode  by  edicts,  which  may  be  found 
m  Mezerai.  An  Italian  author  of  the  fifteenth  century  sup- 
poses an  Italian  traveller  of  nice  modesty  would  not  pass 
through  France,  that  he  might  not  be  offended  by  seeing  men 
whose  clothes  rather  exposed  their  nakedness  than  hid  it. 
The  very  same  fashion  was  the  complaint  m  the  remoter 
period  of  our  Chaucer,  in  his  Parson's  Tale. 

In  the  reign  of  our  Elizabeth  the  reverse  of  all  this  took 
place ;  then  the  mode  of  enoraious  breeches  was  pushed  to  a 
most  laughable  excess.  The  beaux  of  that  day  stuffed  out 
their  breeches  with  rags,  feathers,  and  other  light  matters, 
till  they  brought  them  out  to  an  enormous  size.  They  re- 
sembled wool-sacks,  and  in  a  public  spectacle  they  were 
obliged  to  raise  scaffolds  for  the  seats  of  these  ponderous 
beaux.  To  accord  with  this  fantastical  taste,  the  ladies  in- 
vented large  hoop  farthingales  ;  two  lovers  aside  could  surely 
never  have  taken  one  another  by  the  hand.  In  a  preceding 
reign  the  fashion  ran  on  square  toes  ;  insomuch  that  a  pro- 
clamation was  issued  that  no  person  should  wear  shoes  above 


ANECDOTES   OF   FASHION.  303 

BIX  inches  square  at  the  toes !  Then  succeeded  picked 
pointed  shoes  !  Tlie  nation  was  again,  in  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth, put  under  the  royal  authority.  "  In  that  time,"  says 
honest  John  Stowe,  "  he  was  held  the  greatest  gallant  that 
had  the  deepest  ritjf  and  longest  rapier:  the  offence  to  the 
eye  of  the  one,  and  hurt  unto  the  life  of  the  subject  that  ("anie 
by  the  other — this  caused  her  Majestic  to  make  proclamation 
against  them  both,  and  to  place  selected  grave  citizens  at  every 
gate,  to  cut  the  rnffes,  and  breake  the  rapiers' points  ct  all 
passengers  that  exceeded  a  yeard  in  length  of  their  rapiers, 
and  a  nayle  of  a  yeard  in  depth  of  their  ruffes."  These 
"  grave  citizens,"  at  every  gate  cutting  the  ruffs  and  breaking 
the  rapiers,  must  doubtless  have  encountered  in  their  ludicrous 
employment  some  stubborn  opposition ;  but  this  regulation 
was,  in  the  spirit  of  that  age,  despotic  and  effectual.  Paul, 
the  Emperor  of  Russia,  one  day  ordered  the  soldiers  to  stop 
every  passenger  who  wore  pantaloons,  and  with  their  hangers 
to  cut  off,  upon  the  leg,  the  offending  part  of  these  superfuous 
breeches ;  so  that  a  man's  legs  depended  gi'eatly  on  the 
adroitness  and  humanity  of  a  Russ  or  a  Cossack ;  however 
this  war  against  joanto/oons  was  very  successful,  and  obtained 
a  complete  triumph  in  favour  of  the  breeches  in  the  course  of 
the  week. 

A  shameful  extravagance  in  dress  has  been  a  most  vener- 
able folly.  In  the  reign  of  Richard  II.  their  dress  was 
sumptuous  beyond  belief.  Sir  John  Arundel  had  a  change 
of  no  less  than  fifty-two  new  suits  of  cloth  of  gold  tissue. 
The  prelates  indulged  in  all  the  ostentatious  luxury  of  dress. 
Chaucer  says,  they  had  "  chaunge  of  clothing  everie  daie." 
Brantome  records  of  Elizabeth,  Queen  of  Philip  II.  of  Sjiain, 
tli.at  she  never  wore  a  gown  twice ;  this  was  told  him  by  her 
majesty's  own  tail/eur,  who  from  a  poor  man  soon  became  as 
rich  as  any  one  he  knew.  Our  own  Elizabeth  left  no  less 
than  three  thousand  different  habits  in  her  wardrobe  when 
she  died.     She  was  possessed  of  the  dresses  of  all  countries. 

The  catholic  religion  has  ever  considered  the  pomp  of  the 


30-1:  ANECDOTES   OF  FASHION. 

clerical  habit  as  not  the  slightest  part  of  its  religious  cere- 
monies ;  their  devotion  is  addressed  to  the  eye  of  the  people. 
In  the  reign  of  our  catholic  Queen  Mary,  the  di-ess  of  a 
priest  was  costly  indeed ;  and  the  sarcastic  and  good- 
humoured  Fuller  gives,  in  his  Worthies,  the  will  of  a  priest, 
to  show  the  wardrobe  of  men  of  his  order,  and  desires  that 
the  priest  may  not  be  jeered  for  the  gallantry  of  his  splendid 
apparel.  He  bequeaths  to  various  parish  churches  and  per- 
sons, "  My  vestment  of  crimson  satin — my  vestment  of  crim- 
son velvet — my  stole  and  fanon  set  with  pearl — my  black 
gowa  faced  with  taffeta,"  &c. 

Chaucer  has  minutely  detailed  in  "  The  Persone's  Tale " 
the  grotesque  and  the  costly  fashions  of  his  day  ;  and  the 
simplicity  of  the  venerable  satirist  will  interest  the  antiquary 
and  the  philosopher.  Much,  and  curiously,  has  his  caustic 
severity  or  lenient  humour  descanted  on  the  "  moche  super- 
fluitee,"  and  "  wast  of  cloth  in  vanitee,"  as  well  as  "  the  dis- 
ordinate  scantnesse."  In  the  spirit  of  the  good  old  times,  he 
calculates  "  the  coste  of  the  embrouding  or  embroidering ; 
endenting  or  barring  ;  ounding  or  wavy ;  paling  or  imitating 
pales  ;  and  winding  or  bending  ;  the  costlewe  furring  in  the 
gounes ;  so  much  pounsoning  of  chesel  to  maken  holes  (that 
is,  punched  yviih  a  bodkin)  ;  so  moche  dagging  of  sheres 
(cutting  into  shps)  ;  with  the  superfluitee  in  length  of  the 
gounes  traihng  in  the  dong  and  in  the  myre,  on  horse  and 
eke  on  foot,  as  wel  of  man  as  of  woman — that  all  thilke 
trailing,"  he  verily  believes,  which  wastes,  consumes,  wears 
threadbare,  and  is  rotten  with  dung,  are  all  to  the  damage  of 
"  the  poor  folk,"  who  might  be  clothed  only  out  of  the  flounces 
and  draggle-tails  of  these  children  of  vanity.  But  then  his 
Parson  is  not  less  bitter  against  "  the  horrible  disordinat 
scantnesse  of  clothing,"  and  very  copiously  he  describes, 
though  perhaps  in  terms  and  with  a  humour  too  coarse  for 
me  to  transcribe,  the  consequences  of  these  very  tight  dresses. 
Of  these  persons,  among  other  offensive  matters,  he  sees  "  the 
buttokkes  behind,  as  if  they  were  the  hinder  part  of  a  sheap, 


ANECDOTES  OF  FASHION.  305 

in  the  full  of  the  mone."  He  notices  one  of  the  most  gro- 
tesque modes,  the  wearing  a  parti-coloured  dress  ;  one  stock- 
ing part  white  and  part  red,  so  that  they  looked  as  if  they 
had  been  flayed.  Or  white  and  blue,  or  wliite  and  black,  or 
black  and  red ;  this  variety  of  colours  gave  an  appearance  to 
their  members  of  St.  Anthony's  fire,  or  cancer,  or  other  mis- 
chance ! 

The  modes  of  dress  during  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries  were  so  various  and  ridiculous,  that  they  afforded 
perpetual  food  for  the  eager  satirist. 

The  conquests  of  Edward  III.  introduced  the  French 
fashions  into  England;  and  the  Scotch  adopted  them  by 
their  alliance  with  the  French  court,  and  close  intercourse 
with  that  nation. 

Walsingham  dates  the  introduction  of  French  fashions 
among  us  from  the  taking  of  Calais  in  1347  ;  but  we  appear 
to  have  possessed  such  a  rage  for  imitation  in  dress,  that  an 
Englii^h  beau  was  actually  a  fantastical  compound  of  all  the 
fashions  in  Europe,  and  even  Asia,  in  the  reign  of  Ehzabeth. 
In  Chaucer's  time,  the  prevalence  of  French  fashions  was  a 
common  topic  with  our  satirist ;  and  he  notices  the  affectation 
of  our  female  citizens  in  speaking  the  French  language,  a 
stroke  of  satire  which,  after  four  centuries,  is  not  obsolete,  if 
applied  to  their  faulty  pronunciation.  In  the  prologue  to  the 
Prioresse,  Chaucer  has  these  humorous  hues  : — 

Entewned  in  her  voice  full  seemly, 
And  French  she  spake  full  feteously, 
After  the  Scale  of  Stratford  at  Bmve ; 
The  French  of  Paris  was  to  her  unknowe. 

A  beau  of  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.  has  been  made  out,  by 
the  labourious  Henry.  They  wore  then  long-pointed  shoes 
to  such  an  immoderate  length,  that  they  could  not  walk  till 
they  were  fastened  to  their  knees  with  chains.  Luxury  im- 
proving on  this  ridiculous  mode,  these  chains  the  English  beau 
of  the  fourteenth  century  had  made  of  gold  and  silver ;  but 
the  grotesque  fashion  did  not  finish  here,  for  the  tops  of  their 

VOL.  I.  20 


306  ANECDOTES   OF  FASHION. 

shoes  were  carved  in  the  manner  of  a  church  window.     The 
ladies  of  that  period  were  not  less  fantastical. 

The  wild  variety  of  di'esses  worn  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.  is  alluded  to  in  a  print  of  a  naked  Englishman  holding 
a  piece  of  cloth  hanging  on  his  right  arm,  and  a  pair  of 
shears  in  liis  left  hand.  It  was  invented  by  Andrew  Bordc, 
a  learned  wit  of  those  days.  The  print  bears  the  foUowiug 
inscription : — 

I  am  an  Englishman,  and  naked  I  stand  here, 
Musing  in  my  mind,  wliat  rayment  1  shall  were; 
For  now  I  will  were  this,  and  now  I  will  were  that. 
And  now  I  will  were  what  I  cannot  tell  what. 

At  a  lower  period,  about  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  we  are 
presented  with  a  curious  picture  of  a  man  of  fashion  by 
Puttenham,  in  his  "  Arte  of  Poetry,"  p.  250.  This  author 
was  a  travelled  courtier,  and  has  interspersed  his  curious 
work  with  many  lively  anecdotes  of  the  times.  This  is  his* 
fantastical  beau  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  "  May  it  not. 
seeme  enough  for  a  courtier  to  know  how  to  weave  a  feather 
and  set  his  cappe  aflaunt ;  his  chain  en  echarpe  ;  a  straight 
buskin,  al  Inglese  ;  a  loose  a  la  Turquesqiie  ;  the  cape  alia- 
Spaniola  ;  the  breech  a  la  Frangoise,  and,  by  twentie  maner 
of  new-fashioned  garments,  to  disguise  his  body  and  his  face 
with  as  many  countenances,  whereof  it  seems  there  be  many 
that  make  a  very  arte  and  studie,  who  can  shewe  himselfe 
most  fine,  I  will  not  say  most  foolish  or  ridiculous."  So  that 
a  beau  of  those  times  wore  in  the  same  dress  a  grotesque 
mixture  of  all  the  fashions  in  the  world.  About  the  sanio 
period  the  ton  ran  in  a  different  course  in  France.  There, 
fashion  consisted  in  an  affected  negligence  of  dress ;  for 
IMontaigne  honestly  laments,  in  Book  i.  Cap.  25. — "  I  have 
never  yet  been  apt  to  imitate  the  negligent  garb  which  is  yet 
observable  among  the  young  men  of  our  time  ;  to  wear  my 
cloah  on  one  shoulder,  my  bonnet  on  one  side,  and  one  slocking 
in  something  more  disorder  than  the  other,  meant  to  express  a 
manly  disdain  of  such  exotic  ornaments,  and  a  contempt  of  art." 


ANECDOTES    OF   FASHION.  3^)^ 

The  fashion?;  of  the  Elizabethan  age  have  been  chronicled 
by  honest  John  Stowe.  Stowe  Avas  originally  a  tailor,  and 
when  he  laid  down  the  shears,  and  took  up  the  pen,  the  taste 
and  curiosity  for  dress  was  still  retained.  He  is  the  gi-ave 
chronicler  of  matters  not  grave.  The  chronology  of  ruffs, 
and  tufted  taffetas  ;  the  revolution  of  steel  poking-sticks,  in- 
stead of  bone  or  wood,  used  by  the  laundresses  ;  the  invasion 
of  shoe-buckles,  and  the  total  rout  of  shoe-roses ;  that  grand 
adventure  of  a  certain  Flemish  lady,  who  introduced  the  art 
of  starching  the  ruffs  with  a  yellow  tinge  into  Britain  :  while 
Mrs.  Montague  emulated  her  in  the  royal  favour,  by  present- 
ing her  highness  the  queen  with  a  pair  of  black  silk  stock- 
ings, instead  of  her  cloth  hose,  which  her  majesty  now  for 
ever  rejected  ;  the  heroic  achievements  of  the  Right  Honour- 
able Edward  de  Vere,  Earl  of  Oxford,  who  first  brought 
from  ItaJy  the  whole  mystery  and  craft  of  perfumery,  and 
costly  washes  ;  and  among  other  pleasant  things  besides,  a 
perfumed  jerkin,  a  pair  of  perfumed  gloves  trimmed  with 
roses,  in  which  the  queen  took  such  delight,  that  she  was 
actually  pictured  with  those  gloves  on  her  royal  hands,  and 
for  many  years  after  the  scent  was  called  the  Earl  of  Oxford's 
Perfume.  These,  and  occurrences  as  memorable,  receive  a 
pleasant  kind  of  historical  pomp  in  the  important,  and  not 
hicurious,  narrative  of  the  antiquary  and  the  tailor.  The 
toilet  of  Elizabeth  was  indeed  an  altar  of  devotion,  of  which 
she  was  the  idol,  and  all  her  ministers  were  her  votaries  :  it 
was  the  reign  of  coquetry,  and  the  golden  age  of  millinery  ! 
But  of  grace  and  elegance  they  had  not  the  shghtest  feeling  ! 
There  is  a  print  by  A'ertue,  of  Queen  Elizabeth  going  in  a 
procession  to  Lord  Hunsdon.  This  procession  is  led  by  Lady 
Hunsdon,  who  no  doubt  was  the  leader  likewise  of  the  fash- 
ion ;  but  it  is  imj)0ssible,  with  our  ideas  of  gi-ace  and  comfort, 
not  to  commiserate  this  unfortunate  lady,  whose  standing-up 
wire  ruff,  rising  above  her  head  ;  whose  stays,  or  bodice,  so 
long-waisted  as  to  reach  to  her  knees,  and  the  circumference 
of  her  large  hoop  farthingale,  which  seems  to  enclose  her  in 


308  ANECDOTES   OF  FASfflON. 

a  capacious  tub,  mark  her  out  as  one  of  the  most  pitiable 
martyrs  of  ancient  modes.  The  amorous  Sir  WaUer  Raleigh 
must  have  found  some  of  the  maids  of  honour  the  most  im- 
pregnable fortification  his  gallant  spirit  ever  assailed :  a  coup 
de  vinin  was  impossible. 

I  shall  transcribe  from  old  Stowe  a  few  extracts,  whicli 
may  amuse  the  reader  : — 

"  In  the  second  yeere  of  Queen  Elizabeth  1560,  her  silke 
woman,  Mistris  Montague,  presented  her  majestic  for  a  new 
yeere's  gift,  a  poire  of  black  knit  silk  stockings,  the  which, 
after  a  few  days'  wearing,  pleased  her  highness  so  well,  that 
she  sent  for  Mistris  Montague,  and  asked  her  where  she  had 
them,  and  if  she  could  help  her  to  any  more ;  who  answered, 
saying,  '  I  made  them  very  carefully  of  pui-pose  only  for  your 
majestic,  and  seeing  these  please  you  so  well,  I  will  presently 
set  more  in  hand.'  '  Do  so  (quoth  the  queene),  for  indeed  1 
like  silk  stockings  so  ivell,  because  they  are  pleasant,  fine,  and 
delicate,  that  henceforth  1  loill  wear  no  more  cloth  stock- 
ings ' — and  from  that  time  unto  her  death  the  queene  never 
wore  any  more  cloth  hose,  but  only  silke  stockings ;  for  you 
shall  understand  that  King  Henry  the  Eight  did  weare  onely 
cloath  hose,  or  hose  cut  out  of  ell-broade  taffety,  or  that  by 
great  chance  there  came  a  pair  of  Spanish  silk  stockings  from 
Spain.  King  Edward  the  Sixt  had  a  pai/re  of  long  Spanish 
silke  stockings  sent  him  for  a  great  present. — Dukes'  daughters 
then  wore  gownes  of  satten  of  Bridges  (Bruges)  upon  solemn 
dayes.  Cushens,  and  window  pillows  of  welvet  and  damaske, 
formerly  only  princely  furniture,  now  be  very  plenteous  in 
most  citizens'  houses." 

"  Milloners  or  haberdashers  had  not  then  any  gloves  im- 
hroydered,  or  trimmed  with  gold,  or  silke  ;  neither  gold  nor 
imbroydered  girdles  and  hangers,  neither  could  they  make 
any  costly  wash  or  perfume,  until  about  the  fifteenth  yeere  of 
the  queene,  the  Right  Honourable  Edward  de  Vere,  Earl  of 
Oxford,  came  from  Italy,  and  brought  with  him  gloves,  sweete 
bagges,  a  perfumed  leather  jerkin,  and  other  pleasant  things  ; 


ANECDOTES  OF  FASHION.  309 

and  that  yeere  the  queene  had  a  pair  of  perfumed  gloves 
trimmed  only  with  four  tuffes,  or  roses  of  coloured  silk.  The 
queene  took  such  pleasure  in  those  gloves,  that  she  was  pic- 
tured with  those  gloves  upon  her  handes,  and  for  many  years 
after  it  was  called  '  The  Earl  of  Oxford's  peifume.*" 

In  such  a  chronology  of  fashions,  an  event  not  less  impor- 
tant surely  was  the  origin  of  starching  ;  and  here  we  find  it 
treated  with  the  utmost  historical  dignity. 

"  In  the  year  1564,  Mistris  Dinghen  Van  den  Plasse, 
borne  at  Taenen  in  Flaunders,  daughter  to  a  worshipfuU  knight 
of  that  province,  ^vith  her  husband,  came  to  London  for  their 
better  safeties,  and  there  professed  herself  a  starcher,  wherein 
she  excelled,  unto  whom  her  owne  nation  presently  repaired, 
and  payed  her  very  Uberally  for  her  worke.  Some  very  few 
of  the  best  and  most  curious  wives  of  that  time,  observing  the 
neatness  and  delicacy  of  the  Dutch  for  whitenesse  and  fine 
wearing  of  linen,  made  them  camhricke  ruffs,  and  sent  them 
to  Mistris  Dinghen  to  starch,  and  after  awhile  they  made 
them  riffes  of  lawn,  which  was  at  that  time  a  stuff  most 
strange,  and  wonderfull,  and  thereupon  rose  a  general  scoffe 
or  by-word,  that  shortly  they  would  make  ruffs  of  a  spider's 
web  ;  and  then  they  began  to  send  their  daughters  and 
nearest  kinswomen  to  Mistris  Dinghen  to  learn  hoio  to 
starche  ;  her  usuall  price  was  at  that  time,  foure  or  five 
pound,  to  teach  them  how  to  starch,  and  twenty  sliillings 
how  to  seeth  starch." 

Thus  Italy,  Holland,  and  France,  supplied  us  with  fashions 
and  refinements.  But  in  those  days  they  were,  as  I  have 
shown  from  Puttenham,  as  extravagant  dressers  as  any  of 
their  present  supposed  degenerate  descendants.  Stowc 
affords  us  another  curious  extract.  "  Divers  noble  per- 
sonages made  them  ruffes,  a  full  quarter  of  a  yeurd  deepe, 
and  two  lengthe  in  one  ruffe.  This  fashion  in  London  was 
called  the  French  fashion  ;  but  when  Englislmien  came  to 
Paris,  the  French  knew  it  not,  and  in  derision  called  it  the 
English  monster."  An  exact  parallel  this  of  many  of  oui 
own  Parisian  modes  in  the  present  day. 


3J0  ANECDOTES    OF   FASHION. 

This  was  the  golden  period  of  cosmetics.  The  beaux  ot 
that  day,  it  is  evident,  used  the  abominable  art  of  painting 
their  faces  as  well  as  the  women.  Our  old  comedies  abound 
with  perpetual  allusions  to  oils,  tinctures,  quintessences, 
pomatums,  perfumes,  paint  white  and  red,  &c.  One  of  their 
prime  cosmetics  Avas  a  frequent  use  of  the  bath,  and  tlie  ap- 
plication of  wine.  Strutt  quotes  from  an  old  MS.  a  recipe  to 
make  the  face  of  a  beautiful  red  color.  The  person  was  to 
be  in  a  bath  that  he  might  perspire,  and  afterwards  wash  his 
face  with  wine,  and  "  so  should  be  both  faire  and  roddy."  In 
Mr.  Lodge's  "  Illustrations  of  British  History,"  the  Earl  of 
Shrewsbury,  who  had  the  keeping  of  the  unfortunate  Queen 
of  Scots,  complains  of  the  expenses  of  the  Queen  for  bathing 
in  wine,  and  requires  a  further  allowance.  A  learned  Scotch 
professor  informed  me,  that  white  wine  Avas  used  for  these 
purposes.  They  also  made  a  bath  of  milk.  Elder  beauties 
bathed  in  wine,  to  get  rid  of  their  wrinkles  ;  and  perhaps  not 
Avithout  reason,  wine  being  a  great  astringent.  Unwrinkled 
beauties  bathed  in  milk,  to  preserve  the  softness  and  sleekness 
of  the  skin.  Our  venerable  beauties  of  the  Elizabethan  age 
were  initiated  coquettes  ;  and  the  mysteries  of  their  toilet 
might  be  worth  unveiling. 

The  reign  of  Charles  II.  Avas  the  dominion  of  French 
fashions.  In  some  respects  the  taste  was  a  little  lighter,  but 
the  moral  effect  of  dress,  and  which  no  doubt  it  has,  was 
much  worse.  The  dress  was  very  inflammatory ;  and  the 
nudity  of  the  beauties  of  the  portrait-painter,  Sir  Peter 
Lely,  has  been  observed.  The  queen  of  Charles  11.  exposed 
her  breast  and  shoulders  without  even  the  gloss  of  the  lightest 
gauze  ;  and  the  tucker,  instead  of  standing  up  on  her  bo.'om, 
is  with  licentious  boldness  turned  down,  and  lies  upon  her 
stays.  This  custom  of  baring  the  bosom  was  much  exclaimed 
against  by  the  authors  of  that  age.  That  honest  divine, 
Richard  Baxter,  Avrote  a  preface  to  a  book,  entitled,  "A  just 
and  seasonable  repi'ehension  of  naked  breasts  and  shoulders." 
In  1672  a  book  was  published,  entitled,  *' New  instructions 


ANKCDOTES   OF    FASHION.  311 

unto  youth  for  their  beliaviour,  and  also  a  discourse  upon 
some  innovations  of  habits  and  dressing ;  against  powdering 
of  hair,  naked  breasts,  black  spots  (or  patches),  and  other 
unseemly  customs.''  A  whimsical  fashion  now  prevailed 
amonjr  the  ladies,  of  strangely  ornamenting  their  faces  with 
abundance  of  black  patches  cut  into  grotesque  forms,  such  as 
a  coach  and  horses,  owls,  rings,  suns,  moons,  crowns,  cross 
and  crosslets.  The  author  has  prefixed  two  ladies'  heads ; 
the  one  representing  Virtue,  and  the  other  Vice.  Virtue  is 
a  lady  modestly  habited,  with  a  black  velvet  hood,  and  a 
plain  white  kei'chief  on  her  neck,  with  a  border.  Vice  wears 
no  handkerchief;  her  stays  cut  low,  so  that  they  display 
great  part  of  the  breasts  ;  and  a  variety  of  fantastical  patches 
on  her  face. 

The  innovations  of  fashions  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II. 
were  watched  with  a  jealous  eye  by  the  remains  of  those 
strict  puritans,  who  now  could  only  pour  out  their  bile  in 
such  solemn  admonitions.  They  affected  all  possible  plain- 
ness and  sanctity.  AVhen  courtiers  wore  monstrous  wig<, 
they  cut  their  hair  short ;  when  they  adopted  hats  with  broad 
plumes,  they  clapped  on  round  black  caps,  and  scrcAved  up 
tlieir  pale  religious  faces ;  and  when  shoe-buckles  were 
revived,  they  wore  strings.  The  sublime  Milton,  perhaps, 
exulted  in  his  intrepidity  of  still  wearing  latchets !  The 
Tatler  ridicules  Sir  William  Whitelocke  for  his  singularity 
in  still  affecting  them.  "Thou  dear  Will  Shoestiing,  how 
shall  I  draw  thee  ?  Thou  dear  outside,  will  you  be  combing 
your  wig,  playing  with  your  box,  or  picking  your  teeth,"  &c. 
Wigs  and  snuff-boxes  were  then  the  rage.  Steele's  own  wig, 
it  is  recorded,  made  at  one  time  a  considerable  part  of  his 
annual  expenditure.  His  large  black  periwig  cost  him,  even 
at  that  day,  no  less  than  forty  guineas ! — We  wear  nothing  at 
present  in  this  degree  of  extravagance.  But  such  a  wig  was 
the  idol  of  fashion,  and  they  were  performing  perpetually 
their  worship  with  infinite  self-com|)lacency ;  combing  their 
wigs  in  public  was  then  the  very  spirit  of  gallantry  and  rank 


312  ANECDOTES  OF  FASHION. 

The  hero  of  Richardson,  youthful  and  elegant  as  he  wished 
him  to  be,  is  represented  waiting  at  an  assignation,  and  de- 
scribinof  his  sufferings  in  bad  weather  by  lamenting  that  "  his 
wig  and  his  linen  were  dripping  with  the  hoar  frost  dissolving 
on  them."  Even  Betty,  Clarissa's  lady's  maid,  is  described 
as  "tapping  on  her  snuff-box"  and  fi'equently  taking  snnff. 
At  this  time  nothing  was  so  monstrous  as  the  head-dresses  of 
the  ladies  in  Queen  Anne's  reign  :  they  formed  a  kind  of 
edifice  of  three  stories  high ;  and  a  fashionable  lady  of  that 
day  much  resembles  the  mythological  figure  of  Cybele,  the 
mother  of  the  gods,  with  three  towers  on  her  head. 

It  is  not  worth  noticing  the  changes  in  fashion,  unless  to 
ridicule  them.  However,  there  are  some  w^ho  find  amuse- 
ment in  these  records  of  luxurious  idleness ;  these  thousand 
and  one  follies !  Modern  fashions,  till  very  lately  a  purer 
taste  has  obtained  among  our  females,  were  generally  mere 
copies  of  obsolete  ones,  and  rarely  originally  fantastical. 
The  dress  of  some  of  our  beaux  will  only  be  known  in  a  few 
years  hence  by  their  caricatures.  In  1751  the  dress  of  a 
dandy  is  described  in  the  Inspector.  A  blach  velvet  coat,  a 
green  and  silver  waistcoat,  yellow  velvet  breeches,  and  blue 
stockings.  This  too  was  the  oera  of  black  silk  breeches;  an 
extraordinary  novelty,  against  which  "  some  frowsy  people 
attempted  to  raise  up  worsted  in  emulation."  A  satirical 
writer  has  described  a  buck  about  forty  years  ago  ;  *  one 
could  hardly  have  suspected  such  a  gentleman  to  have  been 
one  of  our  contemporaries.  "A  coat  of  hght  green,  with 
sleeves  too  small  for  the  arms,  and  buttons  too  big  for  the 
sleeves ;  a  pair  of  Manchester  fine  stuff  breeches,  without 
money  in  the  pockets ;  clouded  silk  stockings,  but  no  legs  ; 
a  club  of  hair  behind  larger  than  the  head  that  carries  it ; 
a  hat  of  the  size  of  sixpence  on  a  block  not  worth  a  far- 
thing." 

As  this  article  may  probably  arrest  the  volatile  eyes  of  my 
fair  readers,  let  me  be  permitted  to  felicitate  them  on  their 

*  This  was  written  in  1790. 


ANECDOTES   OF   FASfflON.  313 

ifuprovement  in  elegance  in  the  forms  of  their  dress ;  and 
the  taste  and  knowledge  of  art  which  they  frequently  exhibit 
But  let  me  remind  them  that  there  are  universal  principles 
of  beauty  in  dress  independent  of  all  fashions.  Tacitus 
remarks  of  Poppea,  the  consort  of  Nero,  that  she  concealed 
a  part  of  her  face  ;  to  the  end  that,  the  imagination  having 
fuller  play  by  irritating  curiosity,  they  might  think  higher  of 
her  beauty  than  if  tlie  whole  of  her  face  had  been  exposed. 
The  sentiment  is  beautifully  expressed  by  Tasso,  and  it  will 
not  be  ditficult  to  remember  it : — 

"  Non  copre  sue  bellezze,  e  non  I'espose." 

I  conclude  by  a  poem,  written  in  my  youth,  not  only  be- 
cause the  late  Sir  Walter  Scott  once  repeated  some  of  the 
lines,  from  memory,  to  remind  me  of  it,  and  has  preserved  it 
in  "The  English  Minstrelsy,"  but  also  as  a  memorial  of 
some  fashions  which  have  become  extinct  in  my  own  days. 

STANZAS 

ADDRESSED    TO    LuVURA,    EXTREATII^G    HER    NOT    TO    PAINT,    TO    POWDEB, 
OR  TO   GAME,   BUT  TO   RETREAT  INTO  THE   COUNTRY. 

Ah,  Laura  !  quit  the  noisy  town. 

And  FAsnn)N's  persecuting  reign: 
Health  wanders  on  the  breezy  down, 

And  Science  on  the  silent  plain. 

How  long  from  Art's  reflected  hues 

Shalt  thou  a  mimic  charm  receive? 
Believe,  my  fair !  the  faithful  muse. 

They  spoil  the  blush  they  cannot  give. 

Must  ruthless  art,  with  tortuous  steel. 

Thy  artless  locks  of  gold  deface. 
In  serpent  folds  their  charms  conceal. 

And  spoil,  at  every  touch,  a  grace. 

Too  sweet  thy  youth's  enchanting  bloom 
To  waste  on  midnight's  sordid  crews: 

Let  ^^'Tinkled  age  the  night  consume. 
For  age  has  but  its  hoards  to  lose- 


314  A  SENATE   OF  JESUITS. 

Sacred  to  love  and  sweet  repose, 
Behold  that  trellis'd  bower  is  nigh! 

That  bower  the  verdant  walls  enclose, 
Safe  from  pursuing  Scandal's  eye. 

There,  as  in  every  lock  of  gold 

Some  flower  of  ])leasing  hue  I  weave, 

A  goddess  shall  the  muse  behold, 
And  many  a  votive  sigh  shall  heave. 

So  the  rude  Tartar's  iioly  rite 
A  feeble  mohtal  once  arra3''d; 

Then  trembled  in  that  mortal's  sight, 
And  owu'd  uivisk  the  power  he  made.* 


A    SENATE    OF   JESUITS. 

In  a  book  entitled  "Interets  et  Maximes  des  Princes  et 
des  Etats  Souverains,  par  M.  le  due  de  Rohan ;  Cologne, 
1666,"  an  anecdote  is  recorded  concerning  the  Jesuits,  which 
neither  Puffendorf  nor  Vertot  has  noticed  in  his  history. 

When  Sigismond,  king  of  Sweden,  was  elected  king  of 
Poland,  he  made  a  treaty  with  the  states  of  Sweden,  by 
which  he  obliged  himself  to  pass  every  fifth  year  in  that 
kingdom.  By  his  wars  with  the  Ottoman  court,  with  Mus- 
covy, and  Tartary,  compelled  to  remain  in  Poland  to 
encounter  these  powerful  enemies,  during  fifteen  years  he 
failed  in  accomplishing  his  promise.  To  remedy  this  in  some 
shape,  by  the  advice  of  the  Jesuits,  who  had  gained  an 
ascendancy  over  him,  he  created  a  senate  to  reside  at  Stock- 
holm, composed  of  forty  chosen  Jesuits.  He  presented  them 
with  letters-patent,  and  invested  them  with  the  royal  author 

"While  this  senate  of  Jesuits  was  at  Dantzic,  waiting  for  a 

♦  The  Lama,  or  God  of  the  Tartars,  is  composed  of  such  frail  materials 
as  mere  mortality;  contrived,  however,  by  the  power  of  priestcraft,  to 
appear  immortal;  the  succession  of  Lamas  never  failing! 


A   SENATE    OF  JESUITS.  315 

fair  wind  to  set  sail  for  Stockholm,  he  published  an  edict 
that  the  Swedes  should  receive  them  as  his  own  royal  person. 
A  public  council  was  immediately  held.  Charles,  the  uncle 
of  Sigismond,  the  prelates,  and  the  lords,  resolved  to  prepare 
for  them  a  s[)lendid  and  magnificent  entry. 

But  in  a  private  council,  they  came  to  very  contrary  reso- 
lutions :  for  the  prince  said,  he  could  not  bear  that  a  senate 
of  priests  should  command,  in  preference  to  all  the  princes 
and  lords,  natives  of  the  country.  All  the  others  agreed 
witli  him  in  rejecting  this  holy  senate.  The  archbishop  rose, 
and  said,  "  Since  Sigismond  has  disdained  to  be  our  king,  we 
also  must  not  acknowledge  him  as  such  ;  and  from  this  mo- 
ment we  should  no  longer  consider  ourselves  as  his  subjects. 
His  authority  is  in  suspenso,  because  he  has  bestowed  it  on 
the  Jesuits  who  form  this  senate.  The  people  have  not  yet 
acknowledged  them.  In  this  interval  of  resignation  on  the 
one  side,  and  assumption  on  the  other,  I  absolve  you  all  of 
the  fidelity  the  king  may  claim  from  you  as  his  Swedish 
subjects."  The  prince  of  Bitliynia  addressing  himself  to 
Prince  Charles,  uncle  of  the  king,  said,  "  I  own  no  other 
king  than  you  ;  and  I  believe  you  are  now  obliged  to  receive 
us  as  your  affectionate  subjects,  and  to  assist  us  to  hunt  these 
vermin  from  the  state."  All  the  others  joined  him,  and  ac- 
knowledged Charles  as  their  lawful  monarch. 

Having  resolved  to  keep  their  declaration  for  some  time 
secret,  they  deliberated  in  what  manner  they  were  to  receive 
and  to  precede  this  senate  in  their  entry  into  the  harbour,  who 
were  nowon  board  a  great  galleon,  which  had  anchored  two 
leagues  from  Stockholm,  that  they  might  enter  more  magnif- 
icently in  the  night,  when  the  fire-w^orks  they  had  prepared 
Avould  appear  to  the  greatest  advantage.  About  the  time  of 
their  reception,  Prince  Charles,  accompanied  by  twenty-five 
or  thirty  vessels,  appeared  before  this  senate.  "Wheeling 
about  and  forming  a  caracol  of  ships,  they  discharged  a  vol- 
ley, and  emptied  all  their  cannon  on  the  galleon  bearing  this 
senate,  whiith   had  its  sides  pierced  through  with  the  balls. 


316  THE  LOVER'S   HEART. 

The  galleon  immediately  filled  with  water  and  sunk,  without 
one  of  the  unfortunate  Jesuits  being  assisted :  on  the  con- 
trary, their  assailants  cried  to  them  that  this  was  the  time  to 
perform  some^  miracle,  such  as  they  were  accustomed  to  do 
in  India  and  Japan  ;  and  if  they  chose,  they  could  w^alk  on 
the  waters  ! 

The  report  of  the  cannon,  and  the  smoke  which  the  pow- 
der occasioned,  prevented  either  the  cries  or  the  submersion 
of  the  holy  fathers  from  being  observed :  and  as  if  they 
were  conducting  tlie  senate  to  the  town,  Charles  entered  tri- 
umphantly ;  went  into  the  church,  where  they  sung  Te 
Deum  ;  and  to  conclude  the  night,  he  partook  of  the  enter- 
tainment which  had  been  prepared  for  this  ill-fated  senate. 

The  Jesuits  of  the  city  of  Stockholm  having  come,  about 
midnight,  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  Fathers,  perceived 
their  loss.  They  directly  posted  up  placards  of  excommuni- 
cation against  Charles  and  his  adherents,  who  had  caused 
the  senate  of  Jesuits  to  perish.  They  urged  the  people  to 
rebel ;  but  they  were  soon  expelled  the  city,  and  Charles 
made  a  public  profession  of  Lutheranism. 

Sigismond,  King  of  Poland,  began  a  war  with  Charles  in 
1604,  which  lasted  two  years.  Disturbed  by  the  invasions 
of  the  Tartars,  the  Muscovites,  and  the  Cossacks,  a  truce  was 
concluded ;  but  Sigismond  lost  both  his  crowns,  by  his 
bigoted  attachment  to  Roman  Catholicism. 


THE  LOVER'S  HEART. 

The  following  tale,  recorded  in  the  Historical  Memoirs  of 
Champagne,  by  Bougier,  has  been  a  favourite  narrative  with 
the  old  romance  writers  ;  and  the  principal  incident,  however 
objectionable,  has  been  displayed  in  several  modern  poems. 

Howell,  in  his  "  Familiar  Letters,"  in  one  addressed  to 
Ben   Jonson,   recommends  it    to  him  as  a   subject  "  which 


THE  LO\TR'S   HEART.  317 

peradventure  you  may  make  use  of  in  your  way  ; "  and  con- 
eludes  by  saying,  "  in  my  opinion,  which  vails  to  yours,  this 
is  choice  and  rich  stuff  for  you  to  put  upon  your  loom,  and 
make  a  curious  web  of." 

Tiie  Lord  de  Coucy,  vassal  to  the  Count  d(;  Champagne", 
was  one  of  the  most  accomplished  youths  of  his  time.  lie 
loved,  with  an  excess  of  passion,  the  lady  of  the  Lord  d'l 
Fayel,  who  felt  a  reciprocal  affection.  With  the  most  poig- 
nant grief  this  lady  heard  from  her  lover,  that  he  had  re- 
solved to  accompany  the  king  and  the  Count  de  Champagne 
to  the  wars  of  the  Holy  Land  ;  but  she  would  not  oppose  his 
wishes,  because  she  hoped  that  his  absence  might  dissipate 
the  jealousy  of  her  husband.  The  time  of  departure  having 
come,  these  two  lovers  parted  with  sorrows  of  the  most  lively 
tenderness.  The  lady,  in  quitting  her  lover,  presented  him 
with  some  rings,  some  diamonds,  and  with  a  string  that  she 
had  woven  herself  of  his  own  hair,  intermixed  with  silk  and 
buttons  of  large  pearls,  to  serve  him,  according  to  the  fashion 
of  those  days,  to  tie  a  magnificent  hood  which  covered  his 
helmet.     This  Ive  gratefully  accepted. 

In  Palestine,  at  the  siege  of  Acre,  in  1191,  in  gloriously 
ascending  the  ramparts,  he  received  a  wound,  which  wa? 
declared  mortal.  He  employed  the  few  moments  he  had  tc 
live  in  writing  to  the  Lady  du  Fayel ;  and  he  poured  forth 
the  fervour  of  his  soul.  He  ordered  his  squire  to  embalm 
liis  heart  after  his  death,  and  to  convey  it  to  his  beloved 
mistress,  with  the  presents  he  had  received  from  her  hands 
in  quitting  her. 

The  squire,  faithful  to  the  dying  injunction  of  his  master, 
returned  to  France,  to  present  the  heart  and  the  gifts  to  the 
lady  of  Du  Fayel.  But  when  he  approached  the  castle  of 
this  lady,  he  concealed  himself  in  the  neighbouring  wood, 
watching  some  favourable  moment  to  complete  his  promise. 
He  had  the  misfortune  to  be  observed  by  the  husband  of 
this  lady,  who  recognized  him,  and  who  immediately  sus- 
pected he  came   in  search  of  liis  wife  with  some  message 


3^3  THE  LOVER'S   HEART. 

from  his  master.  He  threatened  to  deprive  him  of  his  hfe  if 
he  did  not  divulge  the  occasion  of  his  return.  The  squire 
assured  liim  that  his  master  was  dead  ;  but  Du  Fayel  not 
believing  it,  drew  his  sword  on  him.  This  man,  frightened 
at  the  peril  in  which  he  found  himself,  confessed  every  thing  ; 
and  put  into  his  hands  the  heart  and  letter  of  his  master. 
Du  Fayel  was  maddened  by  the  fellest  passions,  and  he  took 
a  wild  and  horrid  revenge.  He  ordered  his  cook  to  mince 
the  heart ;  and  having  mixed  it  with  meat,  he  caused  a 
favourite  ragout,  which  he  knew  pleased  the  taste  of  his 
wife,  to  be  made,  and  had  it  served  to  her.  The  lady  ate 
heartily  of  the  dish.  After  the  repast,  Du  Fayel  inquired 
of  his  wife  if  she  had  found  the  ragout  according  to  her 
taste :  she  answered  him  that  she  had  found  it  excellent. 
"It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  caused  it  to  be  served  to  you,  for 
it  is  a  kind  of  meat  which  you  very  much  liked.  You  have, 
Madam,"  the  savage  Du  Fayel  continued,  "  eaten  the  heart 
of  the  Lord  de  Coney."  But  this  the  lady  would  not  be- 
lieve, till  he  showed  her  the  letter  of  her  lover,  with  the 
string  of  his  hair,  and  the  diamonds  she  had  given  him. 
Shuddering  in  the  anguish  of  her  sensations,  and  urged  by 
the  utmost  despair,  she  told  him — '*  It  is  true  that  I  loved 
that  heart,  because  it  merited  to  be  loved :  for  never  could 
it  find  its  superior ;  and  since  I  have  eaten  of  so  noble  a 
meat,  and  that  my  stomach  is  the  tomb  of  so  precious  a  heart, 
I  will  take  care  that  nothing  of  inferior  worth  shall  ever  be 
mixed  with  it."  Grief  and  passion  choked  her  utterance. 
She  retired  to  her  chamber ;  she  closed  the  door  for  ever ; 
and  refusing  to  accept  of  consolation  or  food,  the  amiable 
victim  expired  on  the  fourth  day. 


THE  HISTORY   OF   GLOVES.  319 


THE   HISTORY   OF    GLOVES. 

Thk  present  learned  and  curious  dissertation  is  compiled 
from  the  papers  of  an  ingenious  antiquary,  from  the  "  Pres- 
ent State  of  the  Republic  of  Letters,"  vol.  x.  p.  289. 

The  antiquity  of  this  part  of  dress  will  form  our  first  in- 
quiry ;  and  we  shall  then  show  its  various  uses  in  the  several 
ages  of  the  world. 

It  has  been  imagined  that  gloves  are  noticed  in  the  108th 
Psalm,  where  the  royal  prophet  declares,  he  will  cast  his  shoe 
over  Edom ;  and  still  farther  back,  supposing  them  to  be 
used  in  the  times  of  the  Judges,  Ruth  iv.  7,  where  the  cus- 
tom is  noticed  of  a  man  taking  oti'  his  shoe  and  giving  it  to 
his  neighbour,  as  a  pledge  for  redeeming  or  exchanging  any 
thing.  The  word  in  these  two  texts,  usually  translated  shoe 
by  the  Chaldee  paraphrast,  in  the  latter  is  rendered  glove. 
Casaubon  is  of  opinion  that  gloves  were  worn  by  the  Chal- 
deans, from  the  word  here  mentioned  being  explained  in  the 
Talmud  Lexicon,  the  clothing  of  thb  hand. 

Xenophon  gives  a  clear  and  distinct  account  of  gloves. 
Speaking  of  the  manners  of  the  Pei'sians,  as  a  proof  of  their 
effeminacy  he  observes,  that,  not  satisfied  with  covering  their 
head  and  their  feet,  they  also  guarded  their  hands  against 
the  cold  with  thick  gloves.  Homer,  describing  Laertes  at 
work  in  his  garden,  represents  him  with  gloves  on  his  hands, 
to  secure  them  from  the  thorns.  Varro,  an  ancient  writer,  is 
an  evidence  in  favour  of  their  antiquity  among  the  Romans. 
In  lib.  ii.  cap.  55,  De  He  JRusticd,  he  says,  that  olives  gath- 
ered by  the  naked  hand  are  preferable  to  those  gathered 
with  gloves.  Athenceus  speaks  of  a  celebrated  glutton  who 
always  came  to  table  with  gloves  on  his  hands,  that  he 
might  be  able  to  handle  and  eat  the  meat  while  hot,  and 
devour  more  than  the  rest  of  the  company. 

These  authorities  show  that  the  ancients  were  not  stran- 
gers to  the  use  of  gloves,  though  their  use  was  not   common. 


320  THE  HISTORY   OF   GLOVES. 

In  a  hot  climate  to  wear  gloves  implies  a  considerable  degree 
of  effeminacy.  We  can  more  clearly  trace  the  early  use  of 
gloves  in  northern  than  in  southern  nations.  When  the  an- 
cient severity  of  manners  declined,  the  use  of  gloves  prevailed 
among  the  Romans ;  but  not  without  some  opposition  from 
the  philosojjhers.  Masonius,  a  philosopher,  who  lived  at  the 
close  of  the  first  century  of  Christianity,  among  other  invec- 
tives against  the  corruption  of  the  age,  says,  It  is  shameful 
that  persons  in  perfect  health  should  clothe  their  hands  and 
feet  with  soft  and  hairy  coverings.  Their  convenience,  how- 
ever, soon  made  the  use  general.  Pliny  the  younger  informs 
us,  in  his  account  of  his  uncle's  journey  to  Vesuvius,  that  his 
secretary  sat  by  him  ready  to  write  down  whatever  occurred 
remarkable  ;  and  that  he  had  gloves  on  his  hands,  that  the 
coldness  of  the  weather  might  not  impede  his  business. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century,  the  use  of  gloves 
was  become  so  universal,  that  even  the  church  thought  a  reg- 
ulation in  that  part  of  dress  necessaiy.  In  the  reign  of 
Louis  le  Debonair,  the  council  of  Aix  ordered  that  the  monks 
should  only  wear  gloves  made  of  sheep-skin. 

That  time  has  made  alterations  in  the  form  of  this,  as  in 
all  other  apparel,  appears  from  the  old  pictures  and  monu- 
ments. 

Gloves,  beside  their  original  design  for  a  covering  of  the 
hand,  have  been  employed  on  several  great  and  solemn  occa- 
sions ;  as  in  the  ceremony  of  investitures,  in  bestowing  lands, 
or  in  conferring  dignities.  Giving  possession  by  the  delivery 
of  a  glove,  prevailed  in  several  parts  of  Christendom  in  later 
ages.  In  the  year  1002,  the  bishops  of  Paderborn  and  Mon- 
cerco  were  put  into  possession  of  their  sees  by  receiving  a 
glove.  It  was  thought  so  essei]tial  a  part  of  the  episcopal 
habit,  that  some  abbots  in  France  presuming  to  wear  gloves, 
the  council  of  Poitiers  interposed  in  the  affair,  and  forbad 
them  the  use,  on  the  same  principle  as  the  ring  and  sandals  ; 
these  being  peculiar  to  bishops,  who  frequently  wore  them 
richly  adorned  with  jewels. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   GLOVES.  321 

F.'tvin  observes,  that  the  custom  of  blessing  gloves  at  the 
coronation  of  the  kings  of  France,  which  still  subsists,  is  a 
remain  of  the  eastern  practice  of  investiture  by  a  glove.  A 
remarkable  instance  of  this  ceremony  is  recorded.  The  un- 
fortunate Conradin  was  deprived  of  his  crown  and  his  life 
by  the  usurper  Mainfroy.  When  having  ascended  the  scaf- 
fold, the  injured  prince  lamentmg  his  hard  fate,  asserted  his 
right  to  the  crown,  and,  as  a  token  of  investiture,  threw  his 
glove  among  the  crowd,  intreating  it  might  be  conveyed  to 
some  of  his  relations,  who  would  revenge  his  death, — it  was 
taken  up  by  a  knight,  and  brought  to  Peter,  king  of  Aragon, 
who  in  virtue  of  this  glove  was  afterwards  crowned  at  Pa- 
lermo. 

As  the  delivery  of  gloves  was  once  a  part  of  the  cei-emony 
used  in  giving  possession,  so  the  depriving  a  person  of  them 
was  a  mark  of  divesting  him  of  his  office,  and  of  degradation. 
The  Earl  of  Carlisle,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Second, 
impeached  of  holding  a  correspondence  with  the  Scots,  was 
condemned  to  die  as  a  traitor.  Walsingham,  relating  other 
circumstances  of  his  degradation,  says,  "  His  spurs  were  cut 
off  with  a  hatchet ;  and  his  gloves  and  shoes  were  taken  off," 
ifec. 

Another  use  of  gloves  was  in  a  duel ;  he  who  threw  one 
down  was  by  this  act  understood  to  give  defiance,  and  he 
who  took  it  up  to  accept  the  challenge. 

The  use  of  single  combat,  at  first  designed  only  for  a  trial 
of  innocence,  like  the  ordeals  of  fire  and  water,  was  in  suc- 
ceeding ages  practised  for  deciding  rights  and  property. 
Challenging  by  the  glove  was  continued  down  to  the  reii-n  of 
EUzabeth,  as  appears  by  an  account  given  by  Spelman  of  a 
duel  appointed  to  be  fought  in  Tothill  Fields,  in  the  year 
1571.  The  dispute  was  concerning  some  lands  in  the  county 
of  Kent.  The  plaintiffs  appeared  in  court,  and  demanded 
single  combat.  One  of  them  threw  down  his  glove,  wln'ch 
the  other,  immediately  taking  up,  carried  off  on  the  point 
of  his  sword,  and  the  day  of  fighting  was  appointed :  this 

VOL.   I.  21 


322  THE   HISTORY   OF   GLOVES. 

affair  was  however  adjusted  by  the  queen's  judicious  inter- 
ference. 

The  ceremony  is  still  practised  of  challenging  by  a  glove 
at  the  coronation  of  the  kings  of  P^ngland,  by  his  majesty's 
champion  entering  Westminster  Hall  completely  armed  and 
mounted. 

Challenging  by  the  glove  is  still  in  use  in  some  parts  of 
the  world.  In  Germany,  on  receiving  an  affront,  to  send  a 
glove  to  the  offending  party  is  a  challenge  to  a  duel. 

The  last  use  of  gloves  was  for  carrying  the  hawk.  In  for- 
mer times,  princes  and  other  great  men  took  so  much  pleas- 
ure in  carrying  the  hawk  on  their  hand,  that  some  of  them 
have  chosen  to  be  represented  in  this  attitude.  There  is  a 
monument  of  Philip  the  First  of  France,  on  which  he  is  rep- 
resented at  length,  on  his  tomb,  holding  a  glove  in  his  hand. 

Chambers  says  that,  formerly,  judges  were  forbid  to  wear 
gloves  on  the  bench.  No  reason  is  assigned  for  this  prohibi- 
tion. Our  judges  lie  under  no  such  restraint ;  for  both  they 
and  the  rest  of  the  court  make  no  difficulty  of  receiving 
gloves  from  the  sheriffs,  whenever  the  session  or  assize  con- 
cludes without  any  one  receiving  sentence  of  death,  which 
is  called  a  maiden  assize  ;  a  custom  of  great  antiquity. 

Our  curious  antiquary  has  preserved  a  singular  anecdote 
concerning  gloves.  Chambers  informs  us,  that  it  is  not  safe 
at  present  to  enter  the  stables  of  princes  without  puUing  off 
our  gloves.  He  does  not  tell  us  in  what  the  danger  consists  ; 
but  it  is  an  ancient  established  custom  in  Germany,  that 
whoever  enters  the  stables  of  a  prince,  or  great  man,  with 
his  gloves  on  his  hands,  is  obliged  to  forfeit  them,  or  redeem 
them  by  a  fee  to  the  servants.  The  same  custom  is  observed 
in  some  places  at  the  death  of  the  stag ;  in  which  case  if  the 
gloves  are  not  taken  off,  they  are  redeemed  by  money  given 
to  the  huntsmen  and  keepers.  The  French  king  never  failed 
of  pulling  off  one  of  his  gloves  on  that  occasion.  The  reason 
of  this  ceremony  seems  to  be  lost. 

We  raeet  with  the  terra  glove-money  in  our  old  records  ;  by 


RELICS   OF   SAINTS.  323 

which  is  meant,  money  given  to  servants  tohnj  gloves.  This. 
probably,  is  the  origin  cf  the  phrase  givmg  a  pair  of  gloves, 
to  signify  making  a  present  for  some  favour  or  service. 

Gough,  in  his  "  Sepulchral  Monuments,"  iivforms  us  that 
gloves  formed  no  part  of  the  female  dress  till  after  the  Ref- 
ormation. I  have  seen  some  so  late  as  in  Anne's  time  richly 
worked  and  embroidered. 

There  must  exist  in  the  Denny  family  some  of  the  oldest 
gloves  extant,  as  appeal's  by  the  following  glove  anecdote. 

At  the  sale  of  the  Earl  of  Arran's  goods,  April  6th,  1759, 
the  gloves  given  by  Henry  VIII.  to  Sir  Anthony  Denny 
were  sold  for  38/.  175.;  those  given  by  James  I.  to  his  son 
Edward  Denny  for  22/.  4s. ;  the  mittens  given  by  Queen 
Elizabeth  to  Sir  Edward  Denny's  lady,  2bl.  4s. ;  all  which 
were  bought  for  Sir  Thomas  Denny,  of  Ireland,  who  was 
descended  in  a  direct  hne  from  the  great  Sir  Anthony 
Denny,  one  of  the  executors  of  the  will  of  Henry  VIII. 


RELICS   OF   SAINTS. 

"When  relics  of  samts  were  first  introduced,  the  rehque- 
mania  was  universal ;  they  bought  and  they  sold,  and,  like 
other  collectors,  made  no  scruple  to  steal  them.  It  is  enter- 
taining to  observe  the  singular  ardour  and  grasping  avidity 
of  some,  to  enrich  themselves  with  these  religious  morsels  ; 
their  little  discernment,  the  curious  impositions  of  the  vender, 
and  the  good  faith  and  sincerity  of  the  purchaser.  The  pre- 
late of  the  place  sometimes  ordained  a  fast  to  implore  God 
that  they  might  not  be  cheated  with  the  rehcs  of  saints, 
which  he  sometimes  purchased  for  the  holy  benefit  of  the 
village  or  town. 

Guibert  de  Nogent  wrote  a  treatise  on  the  relics  of  saints; 
acknowledging  that  there  were  many  false  ones,  as  well  as 
false  legends,  he  reprobates  the  inventors  of  these  lyuig  mii-- 


324  RELICS   OF   SAINTS. 

acles.  He  wrote  bis  treatise  on  the  occasion  of  a  tooth  of 
our  Lord's,  by  which  the  monks  of  St.  Medard  de  Soissona 
pretended  to  operate  miracles.  He  asserts  that  this  preten- 
sion is  as  chimerical  as  that  of  several  persons,  who  believed 
they  possessed  the  navel,  and  other  parts  less  decent,  of — 
the  body  of  Christ ! 

A  monk  of  Bergsvinck  has  given  a  history  of  the  transla- 
tion of  St.  Lewin,  a  virgin  and  a  martyr :  her  relics  were 
brought  from  England  to  Bergs.  He  collected  with  relig- 
ious care  the  facts  from  his  brethren,  especially  from  the  con- 
ductor of  these  relics  from  England.  After  the  history  of 
the  translation,  and  a  panegyric  of  the  saint,  he  relates  the 
miracles  performed  in  Flanders  since  the  arrival  of  her  relics. 
The  prevailing  passion  of  the  times  to  possess  fragments  of 
saints  is  well  marked,  when  the  author  particularizes  with  a 
certain  complacency  all  the  knavish  modes  they  used  to 
carry  off  those  in  question.  None  then  objected  to  this  sort 
of  robbery ;  because  the  gratification  of  the  reigning  passion 
had  made  it  worth  while  to  supply  the  demand. 

A  monk  of  Cluny  has  given  a  history  of  the  translation  of 
ihe  body  of  St.  Indalece,  one  of  the  eai'liest  Spanish  bishops, 
written  by  order  of  the  abbot  of  St.  Juan  de  la  Penna.  He 
protests  he  advances  nothing  but  facts  :  having  himself  seen, 
or  learnt  from  other  witnesses,  all  he  relates.  It  was  not 
difficult  for  him  to  be  well  informed,  since  it  was  to  the  mon- 
astery of  St.  Juan  de  la  Penna  that  the  holy  relics  were 
transported,  and  those  who  brought  them  were  two  monks  of 
that  house.  He  has  authenticated  his  minute  detail  of  cir- 
cumstances by  gi^'ing  the  names  of  persons  and  places.  His 
account  was  written  for  the  great  festival  immediately  insti- 
tuted in  honour  of  this  translation.  He  informs  us  of  the 
miraculous  manner  by  which  they  were  so  fortunate  as  to 
discover  the  body  of  this  bishop,  and  the  different  plans  they 
concerted  to  carry  it  off.  He  gives  the  itinerary  of  the  two 
monks  who  accompanied  the  holy  remains.  They  were  not 
a  little  cheered  in  their  long  journey  by  visions  and  miracles. 


RKLICS   OF   SAINTS.  325 

Another  has  written  a  history  of  what  he  calls  the  transla 
lion  of  the  relics  of  St,  Majean  to  the  monastery  of  Ville- 
magne.  Translation  is  in  fact  only  a  softened  expression 
for  the  robbery  of  the  rehcs  of  the  saint  committed  by  two 
monks,  who  carried  them  off  secretly  to  enrich  their  monas- 
tery ;  and  they  did  not  hesitate  at  any  artifice  or  lie  to  com- 
plete their  design.  They  thought  every  thing  was  pei-mitted 
to  acquire  these  fragments  of  mortality,  which  had  now  be- 
ox)me  a  branch  of  commerce.  They  even  regarded  their 
possessors  with  an  hostile  eye.  Such  was  the  rel-gious  opin- 
ion from  the  ninth  to  the  twelfth  century.  Our  Canute  com- 
missioned his  agent  at  Rome  to  purchase  St.  Avgustin's  arm 
for  one  hundred  talents  of  silver  and  one  of  gold ;  a  much 
greater  sum,  observes  Gi-anger,  than  the  finest  statue  of  anti- 
quity would  have  then  sold  for. 

Another  monk  describes  a  strange  act  of  devotion,  attested 
by  several  contemporary  winters.  AVhen  the  saints  did  not 
readily  comply  with  the  prayers  of  their  votaries,  they  flogged 
their  relics  with  rods,  in  a  spirit  of  impatience  which  they 
conceived  was  necessary  to  make  them  bend  into  com- 
pliance. 

Theofroy,  abbot  of  Eptemac,  to  raise  our  admiration,  re- 
lates the  daily  miracles  performed  by  the  relics  of  saints, 
their  ashes,  their  clothes,  or  other  mortal  spoils,  and  even  by 
the  instruments  of  their  martyrdom.  He  inveighs  against 
that  luxury  of  ornaments  which  was  indulged  under  a  relig- 
ious pretext :  "  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  saints  are 
desirous  of  such  a  profusion  of  gold  and  silver.  They  care 
not  that  we  should  raise  to  them  such  magnificent  churches, 
to  exliibit  that  ingenious  order  of  pillars  which  shine  with 
gold,  nor  those  rich  ceilings,  nor  those  altars  sparkling  with 
jewels.  They  desire  not  the  purple  parchment  of  price  for 
their  wi-itings,  the  liquid  gold  to  embellish  the  letters,  nor  the 
precious  stones  to  decorate  their  covers,  while  you  have  such 
little  care  for  the  ministers  of  the  altar."  The  pious  writer 
has  not  foi-gotten  himself  \n  this  copartnership  with  the  saints. 


326  RELICS   OF   SAINTS. 

The  Roman  church  not  being  able  to  deny,  says  Bayle, 
that  there  have  been  false  relics,  which  have  operated  mir- 
acles, they  reply  that  the  good  intentions  of  those  beheveri? 
who  have  recourse  to  them  obtained  from  God  this  reward 
for  their  good  faith  !  In  the  same  spirit,  when  it  was  shown 
that  two  or  three  bodies  of  the  same  saint  are  said  to  exist  in 
different  places,  and  that  therefore  they  all  could  not  be 
authentic,  it  was  answered  that  they  were  all  genuine  ;  for 
God  had  multiplied  and  miraculously  reproduced  them  for 
the  comfort  of  the  faithful !  A  curious  specimen  of  the  in- 
tolerance of  good  sense. 

When  the  Reformation  was  spread  in  Lithuania,  Prince 
Radzivil  was  so  affected  by  it,  that  he  went  in  person  to  pay 
the  pope  all  possible  honours.  His  holiness  on  this  occasion 
presented  him  with  a  precious  box  of  relics.  The  prince 
having  returned  home,  some  monks  entreated  permission  to 
try  the  effects  of  these  relics  on  a  demoniac,  who  had  hitherto 
resisted  every  kind  of  exorcism.  They  were  brought  into 
the  church  with  solemn  pomp,  and  deposited  on  the  altar, 
accompanied  by  an  innumerable  crowd.  After  the  usual 
conjurations,  which  were  unsuccessful,  they  applied  the  relics. 
The  demoniac  instantly  recovered.  The  people  called  out 
*'  a  miracle  !  "  and  the  prince,  lifting  his  hands  and  eyes  to 
heaven,  felt  his  faith  confirmed.  In  this  transport  of  pious 
joy,  he  observed  that  a  young  gentleman,  who  was  keeper  of 
this  treasure  of  relics,  smiled,  and  by  his  motions  ridiculed 
the  miracle.  The  prince  indignantly  took  our  young  keeper 
of  the  relics  to  task ;  who,  on  promise  of  pardon,  gave  the 
following  secret  intelligence  concerning  them.  In  travelling 
from  Rome  he  had  lost  the  box  of  relics ;  and  not  daring  to 
mention  it,  he  had  procured  a  similar  one,  which  he  had  filled 
with  the  small  bones  of  dogs  and  cats,  and  other  trifles  simi- 
lar to  what  were  lost.  He  hoped  he  might  be  forgiven  for 
smiling,  when  he  found  that  such  a  collection  of  rubbish  was 
idolized  with  such  pomp,  and  had  even  the  virtue  of  expelling 
demons.     It  wa.s  by  the  assistance  of  this  box  that  the  prince 


KELICS   OF   SAINTS.  327 

discovered  the  gross  impositions  of  the  monks  and  the  de- 
moniacs, and  Radzivil  afterwards  became  a  zealous  Lu- 
theran. 

The  elector  Frederic,  sumamed  the  Wise,  was  an  inde- 
fatigable collector  of  relics.  After  his  death,  one  of  the 
monks  employed  by  him  solicited  payment  for  several  parcels 
he  had  purchased  for  our  wise  elector ;  but  the  times  had 
changed  !  He  was  advised  to  give  over  this  business ;  the 
relics  for  which  he  desired  payment  they  were  willing  to 
retwn  ;  that  the  price  had  fallen  considerably  since  the 
reformation  of  Luther ;  and  that  they  would  find  a  better 
market  in  Italy  than  in  Germany ! 

Our  Henry  III.,  who  was  deeply  tainted  with  the  super- 
stition of  the  age,  summoned  all  the  great  in  the  kingdom  to 
meet  in  London.  This  summons  excited  the  most  general 
curiosity,  and  multitudes  appeared.  The  king  then  ac- 
quainted them  that  the  great  master  of  the  Knights  Tem 
plars  had  sent  him  a  phial  containing  a  small  portion  of  the 
■precious  blood  of  Christ  which  he  had  shed  upon  the  cross  ; 
and  attested  to  be  genuine  by  the  seals  of  the  patriarch  of 
Jerusalem  and  others !  He  commanded  a  procession  the 
following  day  ;  and  the  historian  adds,  that  though  the  road 
between  St.  Paul's  and  Westminster  Abbey  was  very  deep 
and  miry,  the  king  kept  his  eyes  constantly  fixed  on  the 
phial.  Two  monks  received  it,  and  deposited  the  phial  in 
the  abbey,  "  which  made  all  England  shine  with  glory,  dedi- 
ca(ing  it  to  God  and  St.  Edward." 

Lord  Herbert,  in  his  Life  of  Henry  VIH.,  notices  the  great 
fall  of  the  price  of  relics  at  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries. 
"  The  respect  given  to  relics,  and  some  pretended  miracles, 
lell  ;  insomuch,  as  I  find  by  our  records,  that  a  -piece  of  St. 
Andrew's  finger  (covered  only  with  an  ounce  of  silver),  being 
laid  to  pledge  by  a  monastery  for  forty  pounds,  was  left  un- 
redeemed at  the  dissolution  of  the  house  ;  the  king's  com- 
missioners, who  upon  surrender  of  any  foundation  undertook 
to  pay  the  debts,  refusing  to  return  the  price  again."     That 


328  PERPETUAL   LAMPS    OF   THE   ANCIENTS. 

is,  they  did  not  choose  to  repay  (he,  forty  pounds  to  receive  a 
■piece  of  the  finger  of  St.  Andrew. 

About  this  time  the  property  of  relics  suddenly  sunk  to  a 
South-sea  bubble  ;  for  shortly  after  the  artifice  of  the  Rood 
of  Grace,  at  Boxley  in  Kent,  was  fully  opened  to  the  eye  of 
the  po})ulace  ;  and  a  far-famed  relic  at  Hales,  in  Gloucester- 
shire, of  the  blood  of  Christ,  was  at  the  same  time  exhibited. 
It  was  shown  in  a  phiiil,  and  it  was  believed  that  none  could 
see  it  who  were  in  mortal  sin ;  and  after  many  trials  usually 
repeated  to  the  same  person,  the  deluded  pilgrims  at  length 
went  away  fully  satisfied.  This  relic  was  the  Mood  of  a  duck, 
renewed  every  week,  and  put  in  a  phial ;  one  side  was  opaque, 
and  the  other  transparent ;  the  monk  turned  either  side  to 
the  pilgrim,  as  he  thought  pi'opex".  The  success  of  the  pil- 
grim depended  on  the  oblations  he  made  ;  those  who  were 
scanty  in  their  otfermgs  were  the  longest  to  get  a  sight  of  the 
blood :  when  a  man  was  in  despaii",  he  usually  became  gen- 
erous ! 


PERPETUAL   LAMPS   OF   THE   ANCIENTS. 

No.  379  of  the  Spectator  relates  an  anecdote  of  a  person 
who  had  opened  the  sepulchre  of  the  famous  Rosicrucius. 
He  discovered  a  lamp  burning,  which  a  statue  of  clock-work 
struck  into  pieces.  Hence  the  disciples  of  this  visionary  said 
that  he  made  use  of  tliis  method  to  show  "  that  he  had  re- 
invented the  ever-burning  lamps  of  the  ancients." 

Many  writers  have  made  mention  of  these  wonderful 
lamps. 

It  has  happened  frequently  that  inquisitive  men  examin- 
ing with  a  flambeau  ancient  sepulchres  which  had'  been  just 
opened,  the  fat  and  gross  vapours  kindled  as  the  flambeau 
approached  them,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  the  spectators, 
who  frequently  cried  out  "  a  miracle ! "  This  sudden  in- 
flammation, although  very  natural,  has  given  room  to  believe 


NATURAL   PRODUCTIONS,  ETC.  ^29 

that  these  flames  proceeded  from  perpetual  lamps,  which 
some  have  thought  were  placed  in  the  tombs  of  the  ancients, 
and  which,  they  otiid,  were  extinguished  at  the  moment  that 
these  tombs  opened,  and  were  penetrated  by  the  exterior  air. 

The  accounts  of  the  perpetual  lamps  which  ancient  writers 
give  have  occasioned  several  ingenious  men  to  search  aftc;! 
their  composition.  Licetus,  who  possessed  more  erudition 
than  love  of  truth,  has  given  two  receipts  for  making  this 
eternal  fire  by  a  preparation  of  certain  minerals.  More 
credible  writei-s  maintain  that  it  is  possible  to  make  lamps 
perpetually  burning,  and  an  oil  at  once  inflammable  and  in- 
consumable ;  but  Boyle,  assisted  by  several  experiments 
made  on  the  air-pump,  found  that  these  lights,  which  have 
been  viewed  in  opening  tombs,  proceeded  from  the  coUision 
of  fresh  air.  This  reasonable  observation  conciliates  all,  and 
does  not  compel  us  to  deny  the  accounts. 

The  story  of  the  lamp  of  Rosicrucius,  even  if  it  ever  had 
the  slightest  foundation,  only  owes  its  origin  to  the  spirit  of 
party,  which  at  the  time  would  have  persuaded  the  world 
that  Rosicrucius  had  at  least  discovered  something. 

It  was  reserved  for  modern  discoveries  in  chemistry  to 
prove  that  air  was  not  only  necessary  for  a  medium  to  the 
existence  of  the  flame,  which  indeed  the  air-pump  had  already 
shown  ;  but  also  as  a  constituent  part  of  the  inflammation,  and 
without  wliich  a  body,  otherwise  very  inflammable  in  all  its 
parts,  cannot,  however,  bum  but  in  its  superficies,  which 
alone  is  in  contact  with  the  ambient  air. 


NATURAL  PRODUCTIONS  RESEMBLING  ARTIFICIAL 
COMPOSITIONS. 

Some  stones  are  preserved  by  the  curious,  for  representing 
distinctly  figures  traced  by  nature  alone,  and  without  the  aid 
of  art. 


330  NATURAL  PRODUCTIONS,  ETC. 

Pliny  mentions  an  agate,  in  which  appeared,  formed  by 
the  hand  of  nature,  Apollo  amidst  the  Nine  Muses  holding  a 
harp.  At  Venice  another  may  be  seen,  in  which  is  naturally 
formed  the  perfect  figure  of  a  man.  At  Pisa,  in  the  church 
of  St.  John,  there  is  a  similar  natural  production,  which  rep- 
resents an  old  hermit  in  a  desert,  seated  by  the  side  of  a 
stream,  and  who  holds  in  his  hands  a  small  bell,  as  St. 
Anthony  is  commonly  painted.  In  the  temple  of  St.  Sophia, 
at  Constantinople,  there  was  formerly  on  a  white  marble  the 
image  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  covered  with  the  skin  of  a 
camel ;  with  this  only  imperfection,  that  nature  had  given 
but  one  leg.  At  Ravenna,  in  the  church  of  St.  Vital,  a 
cordelier  is  seen  on  a  dusky  stone.  They  found  in  Italy  a 
marble,  in  which  a  crucifix  was  so  elaborately  finished,  that 
there  appeared  the  nails,  the  drops  of  blood,  and  the  wounds, 
as  perfectly  as  the  most  excellent  painter  could  have  per- 
formed. At  Sneilberg,  in  Germany,  they  found  in  a  mine  a 
certain  rough  metal,  on  which  was  seen  the  figure  of  a  man, 
who  carried  a  child  on  his  back.  In  Provence  they  found  in 
a  mine  a  quantity  of  natural  figures  of  birds,  trees,  rats,  and 
serpents  ;  and  in  some  places  of  the  western  parts  of  Tartary, 
are  seen  on  divers  rocks  the  figures  of  camels,  horses,  and 
sheep.  Pancirollus,  in  his  Lost  Antiquities,  attests,  that  in  a 
church  at  Rome,  a  marble  perfectly  represented  a  priest 
celebrating  mass,  and  raising  the  host.  Paul  III.  conceiving 
that  art  had  been  used,  scraped  the  marble  to  discover 
whether  any  painting  had  been  employed  :  but  nothing  of 
the  kind  was  discovered.  "  I  have  seen,"  writes  a  friend, 
"  many  of  these  curiosities.  They  are  always  helped  out  by 
art.  In  ray  father's  house  was  a  gray  marble  chimney-piece, 
which  abounded  in  portraits,  landscapes,  &,c.,  the  greatest 
part  of  which  was  made  by  myself."  I  have  myself  seen  a 
large  collection,  many  certainly  untouched  by  art.  One 
stone  appears  like  a  perfect  cameo  of  a  Minerva's  head ; 
anotlier  shows  an  old  man's  head,  beautiful  as  if  the  hand  of 
Raffaelle  had  designed  it.  Both  these  stones  are  transparent. 
Some  exhibit  portraits. 


NATURAL  PRODUCTIONS,   ETC.  331 

There  is  preserved  in  the  British  Museum  a  black  stone, 
ou  which  nature  has  sketched  a  resemblance  of  the  portrait 
of  Chaucer.  Stones  of  this  kind  possessing  a  sufficient  degree 
of  resemblance,  are  rare  ;  but  art  appears  not  to  have  been 
used.  Even  in  plants,  we  find  this  sort  of  resemblance. 
There  is  a  species  of  the  orchis,  whei-e  Nature  has  formed  a 
bee,  apparently  feeding  in  the  breast  of  the  flower,  with  so 
much  exactness,  that  it  is  impossible  at  a  very  small  distance 
to  distinguish  the  imposition.  Hence  the  plant  derives  its 
name,  and  is  called  the  Bee-Flower.  Langhorne  elegantly 
notices  its  appearance  : — 

"  See  oil  that  flow'ret's  velvet  breast, 
How  close  the  busj'  vagrant  lies! 
His  thill- wrought  plume,  his  downy  breast, 
The  ambrosial  gold  that  swells  his  thighs. 

"  Perhaps  his  fragi-ant  load  may  bind 

His  limbs; — we'll  set  the  captive  free — 
I  sought  the  LIVING  bee  to  find. 
And  found  the  pictuke  of  a  bee." 

The  late  Mr.  Jackson,  of  Exeter,  wrote  to  me  on  this  sub- 
ject :  "  This  orchis  is  common  near  our  sea-coasts  ;  but  in- 
stead of  being  exactly  hke  a  bee,  it  is  not  like  it  at  all.  It 
has  a  general  resemblance  to  a  fiy,  and  by  the  help  of  im- 
agination may  be  supposed  to  be  a  Hy  pitched  upon  the 
tlower.  The  mandrake  very  frequently  has  a  forked  root, 
which  may  be  fancied  to  resemble  thighs  and  legs.  I  have 
seen  it  helped  out  with  nails  on  the  toes." 

An  ingenious  botanist,  after  reading  this  article,  was  so 
kind  as  to  send  me  specimens  of  the  ^y  orchis,  ophrrjs  miisci- 
fera,  and  of  the  bee  orchis,  ophrys  apifera.  Their  resem- 
blance to  these  insects  when  in  full  flower  is  the  most  perfect 
conceivable  :  they  are  distinct  plants.  The  poetical  eye  of 
Langhorne  was  ccpuUly  correct  and  fanciful  ;  and  that  too  of 
Jackson,  who  differed  so  positively.  Many  controversies 
have  been  carried  on,  from  a  want  of  a  httle  more  knowl- 
edge ;  hke  that  of  the  bee  orchis  and  the  fly  orchis,  both 
parties  prove  to  be  right. 


332  THE  POETICAL   GARLAND    OF  JULIA. 

Another  curious  specimen  of  the  playful  operations  of 
nature  is  the  mandrake ;  a  plant  indeed,  when  it  is  bare  of 
leaves,  perfectly  resembUng  that  of  the  human  form.  The 
ginseng-tree  is  noticed  for  the  same  appearance.  Tliis  object 
the  same  poet  has  noticed  : — 

"  Blark  how  that  rooted  mandrake  wears 
His  human  feet,  his  human  hauds ; 
Oft,  as  his  shapely  form  he  rears, 
Aghast  the  frighted  ploughman  stands." 

He  closes  tliis  beautiful  fable  with  the  following  stanza,  not 
inapposite  to  the  curious  subject  of  this  article : — 

"  Helvetia's  rocks,  Sabrina's  waves. 
Still  many  a  shining  pebble  bear: 
Where  nature's  studious  hand  engraves 
The  PERFECT  FORM,  and  leaves  it  there." 


THE   POETICAL   GARLAND   OF  JULIA. 

HuET  has  given  a  charming  description  of  a  present  made 
by  a  lover  to  his  mistress  ;  a  gift  which  romance  has  seldom 
equalled  for  its  gallantry,  ingenuity,  and  novelty.  It  was 
called  the  garland  of  JuUa.  To  understand  the  natm-e  of 
this  gift,  it  will  be  necessary  to  give  the  history  of  the  par- 
ties. 

The  beautiful  Julia  d'Angennes  was  in  the  flower  of  her 
youth  and  ftune,  when  the  celebrated  Gustavus,  king  of  Swe- 
den, was  making  war  in  Germany  with  the  most  splendid 
success.  Julia  expressed  her  warm  admiration  of  this  hero. 
She  had  his  portrait  placed  on  her  toilet,  and  took  pleasure 
in  declaring  that  she  would  have  no  other  lover  than  Gusta- 
vus. The  Duke  de  Montausier  was,  however,  her  avowed 
and  ardent  admirer.  A  short  time  after  the  death  of  Gusta- 
vus, he  sent  her,  as  a  new-year's  gift,  the  poetical  garland 
of  which  the  following  is  a  description. 

The  most  beautiful  flowers  were  painted  in  miniature  by 


THE   POETICAL   GARLAND   OF  JULIA.  333 

an  eminent  artist,  one  Kobert,  on  pieces  of  vellum,  all  of 
equal  dimensions.  Under  every  flower  a  space  was  left  open 
for  a  madrigal  on  the  subject  of  the  flower  there  painted. 
The  duke  solicited  the  wits  of  the  time  to  assist  in  the  com- 
position of  these  little  poems,  reserving  a  considerable  num- 
ber for  the  effusions  of  his  own  amorous  muse.  Under  every 
flower  he  had  its  madrigal  written  by  N.  du  Jarry,  celebrated 
for  his  beautiful  caligraphy.  A  decorated  frontispiece  ofiered 
a  splendid  garland  composed  of  all  these  twenty -nine  flowei-s ; 
and  on  turning  the  page  a  cupid  is  painted  to  the  life.  These 
were  magnificently  bound,  and  enclosed  in  a  bag  of  rich 
Spanish  leathei".  When  Julia  awoke  on  new-year's  day,  she 
found  this  lover's  gift  lying  on  her  toilet ;  it  was  one  quite  to 
her  taste,  and  successful  to  the  donor's  hopes. 

Of  this  Poetical  Garland,  thus  formed  by  the  hands  of 
Wit  and  Love,  Iluet  says,  "  As  I  had  long  heard  of  it,  I  fre- 
quently expressed  a  wish  to  see  it :  at  length  the  Duchess  of 
Usez  gratified  me  with  the  sight.  She  locked  me  in  her  cab- 
inet one  afternoon  with  this  garland :  she  then  went  to  the 
queen,  and  at  the  close  of  the  evening  liberated  me.  I  never 
passed  a  more  agreeable  afternoon." 

One  of  the  prettiest  inscriptions  of  these  flowers,  is  the 
following,  composed  for 

THE     VIOLET. 

"  Jlodeste  en  ma  couleur,  modeste  en  mon  s^jour, 
Franche  d'ambition,  je  me  cache  sous  I'herbe; 
Mais,  si  sur  votre  front  je  puis  me  voir  un  jour, 
La  plus  humble  des  fleurs  sera  la  plus  superbe." 

"  Modest  my  colour,  modest  is  my  place, 
Pleased  in  the  grass  my  lowly  form  to  hide ; 
But  mid  your  tresses  might  I  wind  with  grace, 
The  humblest  flower  would  feel  the  loftiest  pride." 

The  following  is  some  additional  information  respecting 
"  the  Poetical  Garland  of  Juha." 

At  the  sale  of  the  library  of  the  Duke  de  la  Valbere,  in 
1784,  among  its  numerous  literary  curiosities  this  gai'land 


334  TRAGIC   ACTORh. 

appeared.  It  was  actually  sold  for  the  extravaj^ant  sum  of 
14,510  livres !  though  in  1770,  at  Gaignat's  sale,  it  only  cost 
780  livres.  It  is  described  to  be  "  a  manuscript  on  vellum, 
composed  of  twenty-nine  flowers  painted  by  one  Robeit, 
under  which  are  inserted  madrigals  by  various  authors." 
But  the  Abbe  Rive,  the  superintendent  of  the  Valliere  li- 
brary, published  in  1779  an  inflammatory  notice  of  this  gar- 
land ;  and  as  he  and  the  duke  had  the  art  of  appreciating, 
and  it  has  been  said  making  spunous  literary  curiosities,  tliis 
notice  was  no  doubt  the  occasion  of  the  maniacal  price. 

In  the  great  French  Revolution,'  this  literary  curiosity 
found  its  passage  into  this  country,  A  bookseller  offered  it 
for  sale  at  the  enormous  price  of  £500  sterling  !  No  curious 
collector  has  been  discovered  to  have  purchased  this  unique ; 
which  is  most  remarkable  for  the  extreme  folly  of  the  pur- 
chaser who  gave  the  14,510  livres  for  poetry  and  painting 
not  always  exquisite.  The  history  of  the  Garland  of  Julia 
is  a  child's  lesson  for  certain  rash  and  inexperienced  collect- 
ors, who  may  here 

"  Learn  to  do  well  by  others'  harm." 


TRAGIC  ACTORS. 

MoNTFLEDRY,  a  French  player,  was  one  of  the  greatest 
actors  of  his  time  for  characters  highly  tragic.  He  died  of 
the  violent  efforts  he  made  in  representing  Orestes  in  the 
Andromache  of  Racine.  The  author  of  the  "  Parnasse  Re- 
forme  "  makes  him  thus  express  himself  in  the  shades. 
There  is  something  extremely  di'oll  in  his  lamentations,  with 
a  severe  raillery  on  the  inconveniences  to  which  tragic 
actors  are  liable. 

"  Ah  !  how  sincerely  do  I  wish  that  tragedies  had  never 
been  invented  !  I  might  then  have  been  yet  in  a  state  capa- 
ble of  appearing  on  the  stage ;  and  if  I  should  not  have 


TRAGIC   ACTORS.  335 

attained  the  glory  of  sustaining  sublime  characters,  I  should 
at  least  have  trifled  agreeably,  and  have  worked  off  my 
spleen  in  laughing  !  I  have  wasted  my  lungs  in  the  violent 
emotions  of  jealousy,  love,  and  ambition.  A  thousand  times 
have  I  been  obliged  to  force  myself  to  represent  more  pas- 
sions than  Le  Brun  ever  painted  or  conceived.  I  saw  myself 
frequently  obliged  to  dart  terrible  glances  ;  to  roll  my  eyes 
furiously  in  my  head,  like  a  man  insane  ;  to  frighten  others 
by  extravagant  grimaces  ;  to  imprint  on  my  countenance  the 
redness  of  indignation  and  hatred ;  to  make  the  paleness  of 
fear  and  surprise  succeed  each  other  by  turns  ;  to  express 
the  transports  of  rage  and  despair  ;  to  cry  out  hke  a  demo- 
niac ;  and  consequently  to  strain  all  the  parts  of  my  body  to 
render  my  gestures  fitter  to  accompany  these  different  im- 
pressions. The  man  then  who  would  know  of  what  I  died, 
let  him  not  ask  if  it  were  of  the  fever,  the  dropsy,  or  the 
gout :  but  let  him  know  that  it  was  of  the  Andromache  !  " 

The  Jesuit  Rapin  informs  us,  that  when  Mondory  acted 
Herod  in  the  Mariamne  of  Tristan,  the  spectators  quitted 
the  theatre  mournful  and  thoughtful ;  so  tenderly  were  they 
penetrated  with  the  sorrows  of  the  unfortunate  heroine.  In 
this  melancholy  pleasure,  he  says,  we  have  a  rude  picture  of 
the  strong  impressions  which  were  made  by  the  Grecian 
tragedians.  Mondory  indeed  felt  so  powerfully  the  character 
he  assumed,  that  it  cost  him  his  life. 

Some  readers  may  recollect  the  death  of  Bond,  who  felt  so 
exquisitely  the  character  of  Lusignan  in  Zara,  which  he  per- 
sonated when  an  old  man,  that  Zara,  when  she  addressed 
him,  found  him  dead  in  his  chair  ! 

The  assumption  of  a  variety  of  characters,  by  a  person  of 
irritable  and  delicate  nerves,  has  oflen  a  tragical  effect  on  the 
mental  faculties.  We  might  draw  up  a  list  of  actors,  who 
have  fallen  martyrs  to  their  tragic  characters.  Several  have 
died  on  the  stage,  and,  like  Palmer,  usually  in  the  midst  of 
some  agitated  appeal  to  the  feelings. 

Baron,  who  was  the  French  Garrick,  had  a  most  elevated 


y36  TRAGIC  ACTORS. 

notion  of  his  profession  ;  he  used  to  say,  that  tragic  actors 
should  be  nursed  on  the  lap  of  queens !  Nor  was  his  vanity 
inferior  to  his  enthusiasm  for  his  profession  ;  for,  according  to 
him,  the  world  might  see  once  in  a  century  a  C(Bsar,  but  that 
it  required  a  thousand  years  to  produce  a  Baron  !  A  variety 
of  anecdotes  testify  the  admirable  talents  he  displayed. 
Whenever  he  meant  to  compliment  the  talents  or  merit  of 
distinguished  characters,  he  always  dehvered  in  a  pointed 
manner  the  striking  passages  of  the  play,  fixing  his  eye  on 
them.  An  observation  of  his  respecting  actors,  is  not  less 
applicable  to  poets  and  to  painters.  "  Rules,"  said  this 
sublime  actor,  "  may  teach  us  not  to  raise  the  arms  above  the 
head ;    but  if  passion  carries  them,  it  will  be  well  done  ; 

PASSION  KNOAVS  MORE  THAN  ART." 

Betterton,  although  his  countenance  was  ruddy  and  san- 
guine, when  he  pei'formed  Hamlet,  through  the  violent  and 
sudden  emotion  of  amazement  and  horror  at  the  presence  of 
liis  father's  spectre,  instantly  turned  as  white  as  his  neck- 
cloth, while  his  whole  body  seemed  to  be  affected  vnth.  a 
strong  tremor :  had  his  father's  apparition  actually  risen 
before  him,  he  could  not  have  been  seized  with  more  real 
agonies.  Tliis  struck  the  spectators  so  forcibly  that  they  felt 
a  shuddering  in  their  veins,  and  participated  in  the  astonisn- 
ment  and  the  horror  so  apparent  in  the  actor.  Davies  in  his 
Dramatic  Miscellanies  records  this  fact ;  and  in  the  Richard- 
soniana,  we  find  that  the  first  time  Booth  attempted  the  ghost 
when  Betterton  acted  Hamlet,  that  actor's  look  at  him  struck 
him  with  such  horror  that  he  became  disconcerted  to  such  a 
di'gree,  that  he  could  not  speak  his  part.  Here  seems  no 
want  of  evidence  of  the  force  of  the  ideal  presence  in  this 
marvellous  acting :  these  facts  might  deserve  a  philosophical 
investigation. 

Le  Kain,  the  French  actor,  who  retired  from  the  Parisian 
stage,  like  our  Garrick,  covered  with  glory  and  gold,  was  one 
day  congratulated  by  a  company  on  the  retirement  which  he 
was  preparing  to  enjoy.     "As  to  glory,"  modestly  replied 


JOCULAR  PREACHERS.  337 

this  actor,  "  I  do  not  flatter  myself  to  have  acquired  much. 
This  kind  of  reward  is  always  disputed  by  many,  and  you 
yourselves  would  not  allow  it,  were  I  to  assume  it.  As  to 
the  money,  I  have  not  so  much  reason  to  be  satisfied  ;  at  the 
Italian  theatre,  their  share  is  far  more  considerable  than 
mine  ;  an  actor  there  may  get  twenty  to  twenty-five  thousand 
livres,  and  my  share  amounts  at  the  most  to  ten  or  twelve 
thousand."  "  How  !  the  devil  !  "  exclaimed  a  rude  chevalier 
of  the  order  of  St.  Louis,  w^ho  was  present,  "  How  !  the  devil ! 
a  vile  stroller  is  not  content  with  twelve  thousand  livres  an- 
nually, and  I,  who  am  in  the  king's  service,  who  sleep  upon 
a  cannon  and  lavish  my  blood  for  my  country,  I  must  con- 
sider myself  as  fortunate  in  having  obtained  a  pension  of  one 
thousand  livres."  "  And  do  you  account  as  nothing,  sir,  the 
liberty  of  addressing  me  thus  ?  "  replied  Le  Kam,  with  all  the 
sublimity  and  conciseness  of  an  irritated  Orosmane. 

The  memoirs  of  Mademoiselle  Clairon  display  her  exalted 
feeling  of  the  character  of  a  subHme  actress ;  she  was  of 
opinion,  that  in  common  life  the  truly  sublime  actor  should 
be  a  hero,  or  heroine  off  the  stage.  "  If  I  am  only  a  vulgar 
and  ordinary  woman  during  twenty  hours  of  the  day,  what- 
ever effort  I  may  make,  I  shall  only  be  an  ordinary  and 
vulgar  woman  in  Agrippina  or  Semiramis,  during  the  re- 
maining four."  In  society  she  was  nicknamed  the  Queen  of 
Carthage,  from  her  admirable  personification  of  Dido  in  a 
tragedy  of  that  name. 


JOCULAR  PREACHERS. 

These  preachers,  whose  works  are  excessively  rare,  form 
a  race  unknown  to  the  general  reader.  I  shall  sketch  the 
characters  of  these  pious  buffoons,  before  I  introduce  them  to 
his  acquaintance.  They,  as  it  has  been  said  of  Sterne, 
seemed  to  have  wished,  every  now  and  then,  to  have  thrown 
their  wigs  into  the  faces  of  their  auditors. 

VOL.  I.  22 


338  JOCULAR  PREACHERS. 

These  preachers  flourished  in  the  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and 
sixteenth  centuries ;  we  are  therefore  to  ascribe  their  extrav- 
agant mixture  of  grave  admonition  with  facetious  illustration, 
comic  tales  which  have  been  occasionally  adopted  by  the 
most  licentious  writers,  and  minute  and  lively  descriptions,  to 
the  great  simplicity  of  the  times,  when  the  grossest  indecency 
was  never  concealed  under  a  gentle  periphrasis,  but  every 
thing  was  called  by  its  name.  All  this  was  enforced  by  the 
most  daring  personalities,  and  seasoned  by  those  tempcrary 
allusions  which  neither  spared  nor  feared  even  the  throne. 
These  ancient  sermons  therefore  are  singulaidy  precious,  to 
those  whose  inquisitive  pleasures  are  gratified  by  tracing  the 
manners  of  former  ages.  When  Henry  Stephens,  in  his 
apology  for  Herodotus,  describes  the  irregularities  of  the  age, 
and  the  minutiae  of  national  manners,  he  effects  this  chiefly 
by  extracts  from  these  sermons.  Their  wit  is  not  always 
the  brightest,  nor  their  satire  the  most  poignant ;  but  there 
is  always  that  prevailing  naivete  of  the  age  running  through 
their  rude  eloquence,  which  interests  the  reflecting  mind. 
In  a  word,  these  sermons  were  addressed  to  the  multitude ; 
and  therefore  they  show  good  sense  and  absurdity,  fancy 
and  puerility  ;  satire  and  insipidity ;  extravagance  and  truth. 

Oliver  Maillard,  a  famous  cordelier,  died  in  1502.  This 
preacher  having  pointed  some  keen  traits  in  his  sermons  at 
Louis  XL,  the  irritated  monarch  had  our  cordelier  informed 
that  he  would  throw  him  into  the  river.  He  replied  un- 
daunted, and  not  forgetting  his  satire  :  "  The  king  may  do  as 
he  chooses  ;  but  tell  him  that  I  shall  sooner  get  to  paradise 
by  water,  than  he  will  arrive  by  all  his  post-horses."  He 
alluded  to  travelling  by  post,  which  this  monarch  had  lately 
introduced  into  France.  This  bold  answer,  it  is  said,  intimi- 
dated Louis  ;  it  is  certain  that  Maillard  continued  as  com*- 
ageous  and  satirical  as  ever  in  his  pulpit. 

The  following  extracts  are  descriptive  of  the  manners  of 
the  times. 

In  attacking  rapine  and  robbery,  under  the  first  head  he 


JOCULAR  PREACHERS.  339 

describes  a  kind  of  usury,  which  was  practised  in  the  days 
of  Ben  Jonson,  and  I  am  told  in  the  present,  as  well  as  in 
the  times  of  ]\Iaillard.  "  This,"  says  he,  "  is  called  a  palliated 
usury.  It  is  thus.  When  a  person  is  in  want  of  money,  he 
goes  to  a  treasurer,  (a  kind  of  banker  or  merchant,)  on  whom 
he  has  an  order  for  1000  crowns  ;  the  treasurer  tells  him 
that  he  will  pay  him  in  a  fortnight's  time,  when  he  is  to  re- 
ceive the  money.  The  poor  man  cannot  wait.  Our  good 
treasurer  tells  him,  I  will  give  you  half  in  money  and  half  in 
goods.  So  he  passes  his  goods  that  are  worth  100  crowns 
for  200."  He  then  touches  on  the  bribes  which  these  treas- 
urers and  clerks  in  office  took,  excusing  themselves  by  alleging 
the  little  pay  they  otherwise  received.  "All  Ihese  practices 
be  sent  to  the  devils ! "  cries  Maillard,  in  thus  addressing 
himself  to  the /ac?ies .'  "it  is  for  you  all  this  damnation  en- 
sues. Yes  !  yes !  you  must  have  rich  satins,  and  girdles  of 
gold  out  of  this  accursed  money.  Wlien  any  one  has  any 
thing  to  receive  from  the  husband,  he  must  make  a  present 
to  the  wife  of  some  fine  gown,  or  girdle,  or  ring.  11"  you 
ladies  and  gentlemen  who  are  battening  on  your  pleasures, 
and  wear  scarlet  clothes,  I  believe  if  you  were  closely  put  in 
a  good  press,  we  should  see  the  blood  of  the  poor  gush  out, 
with  which  your  scarlet  is  dyed." 

Maillard  notices  the  following  curious  particulars  of  the 
mode  of  cheating  in  trade  in  his  times. 

He  is  violent  against  the  apothecaries  for  their  cheats. 
"  They  mix  ginger  with  cinnamon,  which  they  sell  for  real 
spices :  they  put  their  bags  of  ginger,  pepper,  saffron,  cinna- 
mon, and  other  drugs  in  damp  cellars,  that  they  may  weigh 
heavier ;  they  mix  oil  with  saffron,  to  give  it  a  color,  and  to 
make  it  weightier."  He  does  not  forget  those  tradesmen  who 
put  water  in  their  wool,  and  moisten  their  cloth  that  it  may 
stretch ;  tavern-keepers,  who  sophisticate  and  mingle  wines  ; 
the  butchers,  who  blow  up  their  meat,  and  who  mix  hog's 
lard  with  the  fat  of  their  meat.  He  terribly  declaims  against 
.hose  who  buy  with  a  great  allowance  of  measure  and  weight, 


340  JOCULAR  PREACHERS. 

and  then  sell  with  a  small  measure  and  weight ;  and  cursea 
those  who,  when  they  weigh,  press  the  scales  down  with  their 
finger.  But  it  is  time  to  conclude  with  Master  Ohver ! 
His  catalogue  is,  however,  by  no  means  exhausted ;  and  it 
may  not  be  amiss  to  observe,  that  the  present  age  has  re- 
tained every  one  of  the  sins. 

The  following  extracts  are  from  Menot's  sermons,  which 
are  written,  like  Maillard's,  in  a  barbai'ous  Latin,  mixed  with 
old  French. 

Michael  Menot  died  in  1518.  I  think  he  has  more  wit  than 
Maillard,  and  occasionally  displays  a  brilliant  imagination ; 
with  the  same  singular  mixtui-e  of  grave  declamation  and 
farcical  absurdities.  He  is  called  in  the  title-page  the  golden 
tongued.  It  runs  thus,  Predicatoris  qui  lingua  aurea,  sua 
tempestate  nunciipatus  est,  Sermones  quadragesimales,  ab  ipso 
olim  Turonis  declamati.     Paris,  1525,  8vo. 

When  he  compares  the  church  with  a  vine,  he  says, 
"  There  were  once  some  Britons  and  Enghslmaen  who  would 
have  carried  away  all  France  into  their  country,  because 
they  found  our  wine  better  than  their  beer ;  but  as  they  well 
knew  that  they  could  not  always  remain  in  France,  nor  carry 
away  France  into  their  country,  they  would  at  least  carry 
with  them  several  stocks  of  vines  ;  they  planted  some  in 
England  ;  but  these  stocks  soon  degenerated,  because  the  soil 
was  not  adapted  to  them."  Notwithstanding  what  Menot 
said  in  1500,  and  that  we  have  tried  so  often,  we  have  often 
flattered  ourselves  that  if  we  plant  vineyards  we  may  have 
English  wine. 

The  following  beautiful  figure  describes  those  who  live 
neglectful  of  their  aged  parents,  who  had  cherished  them 
into  prosperity.  "  See  the  trees  flourish  and  recover  their 
leaves  ;  it  is  their  root  that  has  produced  all ;  but  when  the 
branches  are  loaded  \vith  flowers  and  with  fruits,  they  yield 
nothing  to  the  root.  This  is  an  image  of  those  children  who 
prefer  their  own  amusements,  and  to  game  away  their  for- 
tunes, than  to  give  to  their  old  parents  that  which  they  want." 


JOCULAR  PREACHERS.  341 

He  acquaints  us  with  the  following  circumstances  of  the 
imtnoralitj  of  that  age :  "  Who  has  not  got  a  mistress  besides 
his  wife  ?  The  poor  wife  eats  the  fruits  of  bitterness,  and 
even  makes  the  bed  for  the  mistress.  Oaths  were  not  un- 
fashionable in  his  day.  "  Since  the  world  has  been  world, 
this  crime  was  never  greater.  There  were  once  piUories  for 
these  swearers  ;  but  now  this  crime  is  so  common,  that  the 
child  of  five  years  can  swear ;  and  even  the  old  dotard  of 
eighty,  who  has  only  two  teeth  remaming,  can  fling  out  an 
oath." 

On  the  power  of  the  fair  sex  of  his  day,  he  observes,  "  A 
father  says,  my  son  studies  ;  he  must  have  a  bishopric,  or  an 
abbey  of  500  livres.  Then  he  will  have  dogs,  horses,  and 
mistresses,  like  others.  Another  says,  I  will  have  my  son 
placed  at  court,  and  have  many  honourable  dignities.  To 
succeed  well,  both  employ  the  mediation  of  women  ;  un- 
happily the  church  and  the  law  are  entu*ely  at  their  disposal. 
We  have  artful  Dalilahs  who  shear  us  close.  For  twelve 
crowns  and  an  ell  of  velvet  given  to  a  woman,  you  gain  the 
worst  law-suit,  and  the  best  living." 

In  his  last  sermon,  Menot  recapitulates  the  various  topics 
he  had  touched  on  during  Lent.  This  extract  presents  a 
curious  picture,  and  a  just  notion  of  the  versatile  talents  of 
these  preachers. 

"  I  have  told  ecclesiastics  how  they  should  conduct  them- 
selves ;  not  that  they  are  ignorant  of  their  duties  ;  but  I  must 
ever  repeat  to  girls,  not  to  suffer  themselves  to  be  duped  by 
them.  I  have  told  these  ecclesiastics  that  they  should  imitate 
the  lark ;  if  she  has  a  grain  she  does  not  remain  idle,  but 
feels  her  pleasure  in  singing,  and  in  singing  always  is  ascend- 
ing towards  heaven.  So  they  should  not  amass  ;  but  elevate 
the  hearts  of  all  to  God  ;  and  not  do  as  the  frogs  who  are 
crying  out  day  and  night,  and  think  they  have  a  fine  throat, 
but  always  remain  fixed  in  the  mud. 

"  I  have  told  the  men  of  the  law  that  they  should  have  the 
quahties  of  the  eagle.     The  first  is,  that  this  bird  when   it 


342  JOCULAR   PREACHERS, 

flies  fixes  its  eye  on  the  sun ;  so  all  judges,  counsellors,  and 
attorneys,  in  judging,  writing,  and  signing,  should  always 
have  God  before  their  eyes.  And  secondly,  this  bird  is 
never  greedy ;  it  Avillingly  shares  its  prey  with  others  ;  so  all 
lawyers,  who  are  rich  in  crowns  after  having  had  their  bills 
paid,  should  distribute  some  to  the  poor,  particularly  when 
they  are  conscious  that  their  money  arises  from  their  prey. 

"  I  have  spoken  of  the  marriage  state,  but  all  that  I  have 
said  has  been  disregarded.  See  those  wretches  who  break 
the  hymeneal  chains,  and  abandon  their  wives !  they  pass 
their  holidays  out  of  their  parishes,  because  if  they  remained 
at  home  they  must  have  joined  their  wives  at  church  ;  they 
liked  their  prostitutes  better ;  and  it  will  be  so  every  day  in 
the  year !  I  would  as  well  dine  with  a  Jew  or  a  heretic,  as 
with  them.  What  an  infected  place  is  this!  Mistress 
Lubricity  has  taken  possession  of  the  whole  city  ;  look  in 
every  corner,  and  you'll  be  convinced. 

"  For  you  married  women  !  If  you  have  heard  the  night- 
ingale's song,  you  must  know  that  she  sings  during  three 
months,  and  that  she  is  silent  when  she  has  young  ones.  So 
there  is  a  time  in  which  you  may  sing  and  take  your  pleas- 
ures in  the  marriage  state,  and  another  to  watch  your 
children.  Don't  damn  yourselves  for  them ;  and  remember 
it  would  be  better  to  see  them  drowned  than  damned. 

"  As  to  widows,  I  observe,  that  the  turtle  withdraws  and 
sighs  in  the  woods,  whenever  she  has  lost  her  companion  ; 
so  must  they  retire  into  the  wood  of  the  cross,  and  having 
lost  their  temporal  husband,  take  no  other  but  Jesus  Christ. 

"  And,  to  close  all,  I  have  told  girls  that  they  must  fly 
from  the  company  of  men,  and  not  permit  them  to  embrace, 
nor  even  touch  them.  Look  on  the  rose  ;  it  has  a  delightful 
odour ;  it  embalms  the  place  in  which  it  is  placed  ;  but  if 
you  grasp  it  undei'neath,  it  will  prick  you  till  the  blood  issues. 
The  beauty  of  the  rose  is  the  beauty  of  the  girl.  The  beauty 
and  pei-fume  of  the  first  invite  to  smell  and  to  handle  it,  but 
when  it  is  touched  underneath  it  pricks  sharply  ;    the  beauty 


JOCULAR  PREACHERS.  343 

of  a  girl  likewise  invites  the  hand  ;  but  you,  my  young 
ladies,  you  must  never  suffer  this,  for  I  tell  you  that  every 
man  who  does  this  designs  to  make  you  hai'lots." 

These  ample  extracts  may  convey  the  same  pleasure  to 
the  reader  which  I  have  received  by  collecting  them  from 
their  scarce  originals,  little  known  even  to  the  curious. 
Menot,  it  cannot  be  denied,  displays  a  poetic  imagination, 
and  a  fertility  of  conception  which  distinguishes  him  among 
his  rivals.  The  same  taste  and  popular  manner  came  into 
our  country,  and  were  suited  to  the  simplicity  of  the  age. 
In  1527,  our  Bishop  Latuner  preached  a  sermon,  in  which 
he  expresses  himself  thus : — "  Now  ye  have  heard  what  is 
meant  by  this  first  card,  and  how  ye  ought  to  play.  I  pur- 
pose again  to  deal  unto  you  another  card  of  the  same  suit ; 
for  they  be  so  nigh  affinity,  that  one  cannot  be  well  played 
without  the  other."  It  is  curious  to  observe  about  a  century 
afterwards,  as  Fuller  informs  us,  that  when  a  country  clergy- 
man imitated  these  famihar  allusions,  the  taste  of  the  con- 
gregation had  so  changed  that  he  was  interrupted  by  peals 
of  laughter ! 

Even  in  more  modem  times  have  Menot  and  Maillard 
found  an  imitator  in  httle  Father  Andre,  as  well  as  others. 
His  character  has  been  variously  drawn.  He  is  by  some 
represented  as  a  kind  of  buffoon  in  the  pulpit ;  but  others 
more  judiciously  observe,  that  he  only  indulged  his  natural 
genius,  and  uttered  humorous  and  lively  things,  as  the  good 
father  observes  himself,  to  keep  the  attention  of  his  audience 
awake.  He  was  not  always  laughing.  "  He  told  many  a 
bold  truth,"  says  the  author  of  Guerre  des  Autetirs  anciens  et 
modernes,  "  that  sent  bishops  to  their  dioceses,  and  made 
many  a  coquette  blush.  He  possessed  the  art  of  biting  when 
he  smiled ;  and  more  ably  combated  vice  by  Ids  ingenious 
satire  than  by  those  vague  apostrophes  which  no  one  takes  to 
himself.  While  others  were  straining  their  minds  to  catch 
at  subhme  thoughts  which  no  one  understood,  he  lowered  his 
talents  to  the  most  humble  situations,  and  to  the  minutest 


344  JOCULAR  PREACHERS. 

things.  From  them  he  drew  his  examples  and  his  omipari- 
eons  ;  and  the  one  and  the  other  never  failed  of  success." 
Marville  says,  that  "  His  expressions  were  full  of  shrewd 
simplicity.  He  made  very  free  use  of  the  most  popular 
proverbs.  His  comparisons  and  figures  were  always  bor- 
rowed from  the  most  famihar  and  lowest  things."  To  ridi- 
cule effectually  the  reigning  vices,  he  would  prefer  quirks  or 
puns  to  sublime  thoughts  ;  and  he  was  little  soUcitous  of  his 
choice  of  expression,  so  the  things  came  home.  Gozzi,  in 
Italy,  had  the  same  power  in  drawing  unexpected  inferences 
from  vulgar  and  famihar  occurrences.  It  was  by  this  art 
Whitfield  obtained  so  many  followers.  In  Piozzi's  British 
Synonymes,  vol.  ii.  p.  205,  we  have  an  instance  of  Gozzi's 
manner.  In  the  time  of  Charles  II.,  it  became  fashionable 
to  introduce  humour  into  sermons.  Sterne  seems  to  have 
revived  it  in  his :  South's  sparkle  perpetually  with  wit  and 
pun. 

Far  different,  however,  are  the  characters  of  the  subhme 
preachers,  of  whom  the  French  have  preserved  the  following 
descriptions. 

We  have  not  any  more  Bourdaloue,  La  Rue,  and  MassU- 
lon  ;  but  the  idea  which  still  exists  of  their  manner  of  address- 
ing their  auditors  may  serve  instead  of  lessons.  Each  had 
his  own  peculiar  mode,  always  adapted  to  place,  time,  cir- 
cumstance ;  to  their  auditors,  their  style,  and  their  subject. 

Bourdaloue,  with  a  collected  air,  had  little  action  ;  with 
eyes  generally  half  closed,  he  penetrated  the  hearts  of  the 
people  by  the  sound  of  a  voice  uniform  and  solemn.  The 
tone  with  which  a  sacred  orator  pronounced  the  words,  2\i 
est  ille  vir !  ''  Thou  art  the  man  ! "  in  suddenly  addressing 
them  to  one  of  the  kings  of  France,  struck  more  forcibly  than 
their  application.  Madame  de  Sevigne  describes  our  preacher, 
by  saying,  "  Father  Bourdaloue  thunders  at  Notre  Dame." 

La  Kue  appeared  with  the  air  of  a  prophet.  His  manner 
was  irresistible,  fuU  of  fire,  inteUigence,  and  force.  He  had 
strokes  perfectly  original.     Several  old  men,  his  contempo- 


MASTERLY  IMITATORS.  345 

raries,  still  shuddered  at  the  recollection  of  the  expression 
which  he  employed  in  an  apostrophe  to  the  God  of  vengeance, 
Ecaginare  gladiuTJi  tuum  ! 

The  person  of  MassiUon  affected  his  admirers.  He  was 
seen  in  the  pulpit  with  tliat  air  of  simplicity,  that  modest  de- 
meanour, tliose  eyes  humbly  declining,  those  unstudied  ges- 
tures, that  passionate  tone,  that  mild  countenance  of  a  man 
penetrated  with  his  subject,  conveying  to  the  mind  the  most 
luminous  ideas,  and  to  the  heart  the  most  tender  emotions. 
Baron,  the  tragedian,  coming  out  from  one  of  liis  sermons, 
truth  forced  from  his  lips  a  confession  humiliating  to  his  pro- 
fession: "My  friend,"  said  he  to  one  of  his  companions, 
"  this  is  an  orator  '  and  we  are  only  actors." 


MASTERLY   BIITATORS. 

There  have  been  found  occasionally  some  artists  who 
could  so  perfectly  imitate  the  spirit,  the  taste,  the  character, 
and  the  peculiarities  of  great  masters,  that  they  have  not  un- 
frequently  deceived  the  most  skilful  connoisseurs.  Michael 
Angelo  sculptured  a  sleeping  Cupid,  of  which  having  broken 
off  an  arm,  he  buried  the  statue  in  a  place  where  die  kncAv  it 
would  soon  be  found.  The  critics  were  never  tired  of  ad- 
miring it,  as  one  of  the  most  precious  rehcs  of  antiquity. 
It  was  sold  to  the  Cardinal  of  St.  Geoi-ge,  to  whom  Michael 
Angelo  discovered  the  whole  mystery,  by  joining  to  the  Cupid 
the  arm  which  he  had  reserved. 

An  anecdote  of  Peter  Mignard  is  more  singular.  This 
great  artist  painted  a  Magdalen,  on  a  canvas  fabricated  at 
Rome.  A  broker,  in  concert  with  Mignard,  went  to  the 
Chevalier  de  Clairville,  and  told  him  as  a  secret  that  he  was 
to  receive  from  Italy  a  Magdalen  of  Guido,  and  his  master- 
piece. The  chevalier  caught  the  bait,  begged  the  preference, 
and  purchased  the  picture  at  a  very  high  price. 


346  MASTERLY  IMITATORS. 

He  was  informed  that  he  had  been  imposed  u].oii,  and  tha( 
the  Magdalen  was  painted  by  Mignard.  Mignard  himself 
caused  the  alarm  to  be  given,  but  the  amateur  would  not 
believe  it ;  all  the  connoisseurs  agreed  it  was  a  Guido,  and 
the  famous  Le  Brun  corroborated  this  opinion. 

The  chevalier  came  to  Mignard  : — "  Some  persons  assure 
me  that  my  Magdalen  is  your  work  !  " — "  Mine  !  they  do  me 
great  honour.  I  am  sure  that  Le  Brun  is  not  of  this  opinion." 
— "  Le  Brun  swears  it  can  be  no  other  than  a  Guido.  You 
shall  dine  with  me,  and  meet  several  of  the  first  comiois- 
seurs." 

On  the  day  of  meeting,  the  picture  was  again  more  closely 
inspected.  Mignard  hinted  his  doubts  whether  the  piece  was 
the  work  of  tliat  great  master ;  he  insmuated  that  it  was  pos- 
sible to  be  deceived  ;  and  added,  that  if  it  was  Guide's,  he 
did  not  think  it  in  his  best  manner.  "  It  is  a  Guido,  sir,  and 
in  his  very  best  manner,"  replied  Le  Brun,  with  warmth ; 
and  all  the  critics  were  unanimous  Mignard  then  spoke  in 
a  firm  tone  of  voice :  "And  I,  gentlemen,  will  wager  three 
hundred  louis  that  it  is  not  a  Guido."  The  dispute  now  be 
came  violent :  Le  Brun  was  desirous  of  accepting  the  wager. 
In  a  word,  the  affair  became  such  that  it  could  add  nothing 
more  to  the  glory  of  Mignard.  "  No,  sir,"  replied  the  latter, 
"  I  am  too  honest  to  bet  when  I  am  certain  to  win.  Monsieur 
le  Chevalier,  this  piece  cost  you  two  thousand  crowns :  the 
money  must  be  returned, — the  painting  is  mine"  Le  Brun 
would  not  believe  it.  "  The  proof,"  Mignard  continued,  "  is 
easy.  On  this  canvas,  which  is  a  Roman  one,  was  the  por- 
trait of  a  cardinal ;  I  will  show  you  his  cap." — The  chevalier 
did  not  know  which  of  the  rival  artists  to  credit.  The  propo- 
sition alarmed  him.  "  He  who  painted  the  picture  shall 
repair  it,"  said  Mignard.  He  took  a  pencil  dipped  in  oil, 
and  rubbing  the  hair  of  the  Magdalen,  discovered  tlie  cap  of 
the  cardinal.  The  honour  of  the  ingenious  painter  could  no 
longer  be  disputed  ;  Le  Brun,  vexed,  sarcastically  exclaimed, 
•'Always  paint  Guido,  but  never  Mignard." 


MASTERLY  IMITATORS.  347 

There  is  a  collection  of  engravings  by  that  ingenious  artist 
Bernard  Picart,  which  has  been  publislied  under  the  title  of 
The  Innocent  Impostors.  Picart  had  long  been  vexed  at  the 
taste  of  his  day,  which  ran  wholly  in  favour  of  antiquity, 
and  no  one  would  look  at,  much  less  admire,  a  modern  master. 
He  published  a  pi-etended  collection,  or  a  set  of  prints,  from 
the  designs  of  the  great  painters ;  in  which  he  imitated  the 
etchings  and  engravings  of  the  various  masters,  and  much 
were  these  prints  admii'ed  as  the  works  of  Guido,  Rembrandt, 
and  others.  Having  had  his  joke,  they  were  published  under 
the  title  of  Imposteurs  Innocens.  The  connoisseurs,  how- 
ever, are  strangely  divided  in  their  opinion  of  the  merit  of 
this  collection.  Gilpin  classes  these  "  Innocent  Impostors  " 
among  the  most  entertaining  of  his  works,  and  is  delighted  by 
the  happiness  with  which  he  has  outdone  in  their  own  excel- 
lences the  artists  whom  he  copied ;  but  Strutt,  too  grave  to 
admit  of  jokes  that  twitch  the  connoisseurs,  declares  that  they 
could  never  have  deceived  an  experienced  judge,  and  repro- 
bates such  kinds  of  ingenuity,  played  off  at  the  cost  of  the 
venerable  brotherhood  of  the  cognoscenti ! 

The  same  thing  was,  however,  done  by  Goltzius,  who 
being  disgusted  at  the  preference  given  to  the  works  of  Albert 
Durer,  Lucas  of  Leyden,  and  others  of  that  school,  and  hav- 
ing attempted  to  introduce  a  better  taste,  which  was  not  im- 
mediately relished,  he  published  what  were  afterwards  called 
his  master-pieces.  These  are  six  prints  in  the  style  of  these 
masters,  merely  to  prove  that  Goltzius  could  imitate  their 
works,  if  he  thought  proper.  One  of  these,  the  Circumcision, 
he  had  printed  on  soiled  paper;  and  to  give  it  the  brown  tint 
of  antiquity  had  carefully  smoked  it,  by  which  means  it  Avas 
sold  as  a  curious  performance,  and  deceived  some  of  the  most 
capital  connoisseurs,  of  the  day,  one  of  whom  bought  it  as 
one  of  the  finest  engravings  of  Albert  Durer:  even  Strutt 
acknowledges  the  merit  of  Goltzius's  master-pieces  ! 

To  these  instances  of  artists  I  will  add  others  of  celebrated 
authors.     Muretus  rendered  Joseph  Scaliger,  a  great  stickler 


348  MASTERLY   IMITATORS. 

for  the  ancients,  highly  ridiculous  by  an  artifice  which  he 
practised.  He  sent  some  verses  which  he  pretended  were 
copied  fi'om  an  old  manuscript.  The  verses  were  excellent, 
and  Scahger  was  credulous.  After  having  read  them,  he 
exclaimed  they  were  admirable,  and  affirmed  that  they  were 
written  by  an  old  comic  poet,  Trabeus.  He  quoted  them,  in 
his  commentary  on  Varro  De  Re  Rustica,  as  one  of  the  most 
precious  fragments  of  antiquity.  It  was  then,  when  he  had 
fixed  his  foot  firmly  in  the  trap,  that  Muretus  informed  the 
world  of  the  little  dependence  to  be  placed  on  the  critical 
sagacity  of  one  so  prejudiced  in  favour  of  the  ancients,  and 
who  considered  his  judgment  as  infallible. 

The  Abbe  Regnier  Desmarais,  having  written  an  ode,  or,  as 
the  Italians  call  it,  canzone,  sent  it  to  the  Abbe  Sfrozzi  at 
Florence,  who  used  it  to  impose  on  three  or  four  academicians 
of  Delia  Crusca.  He  gave  out  that  Leo  Allatius,  librarian  of 
the  Vatican,  in  examining  carefully  the  MSS.  of  Petrarch 
preserved  there,  had  found  two  pages  slightly  glued,  which 
having  separated,  he  had  discovered  this  ode.  The  fact  was 
not  at  first  easily  credited  ;  but  afterwards  the  similarity  of  style 
and  manner  rendered  it  highly  probable.  When  Strozzi  unde- 
ceived the  public,  it  procured  the  Abbe  Regnier  a  place  in  the 
academy,  as  an  honourable  testimony  of  his  ingenuity. 

Pere  Commii-e,  when  Louis  XIV.  resolved  on  the  con- 
quest of  Holland,  composed  a  Latin  fable,  entitled  "  The  Sun 
and  the  Frogs,"  in  which  he  assumed  with  such  felicity 
the  style  and  character  of  Phaedrus,  that  the  learned  Wolfius 
was  deceived,  and  innocently  inserted  it  in  his  edition  of  that 
fabulist. 

Flaminius  Strada  would  have  deceived  most  of  the  critics  of 
his  age,  if  he  had  given  as  the  remains  of  antiquitj^  the  dif- 
ferent pieces  of  history  and  poetry  which  he  composed  on  the 
model  of  the  ancients,  in  his  Prolusiones  Academicce.  To 
preserve  probabihty  he  might  have  given  out  that  he  had 
drawn  them  from  some  old  and  neglected  hbrary ;  he  had 
then  only  to  have  added  a  good  commentary,  tending  to  dis- 


EDWARD   THE   FOURTH.  349 

play  the  conformity  of  the  style  and  manner  of  these  frag- 
ments with  the  works  of  those  authors  to  whom  he  ascribed 
tliem. 

Sigonius  was  a  great  master  of  the  style  of  Cicero,  and 
ventured  to  publish  a  treatise  De  Consolatione,  as  a  compo- 
sition of  Cicero  recently  discovered  ;  many  were  deceived 
by  the  counterfeit,  which  was  performed  with  great  dexterity, 
and  was  long  received  as  genuine ;  but  he  could  not  deceive 
Lipsius,  who,  after  reading  only  ten  lines,  threw  it  away,  ex- 
claiming, "  Vah !  non  est  Ciceronis."  The  late  INIr.  Burke 
succeeded  more  skilfully  in  his  "Vindication  of  Natural  So- 
ciety," which  for  a  long  time  passed  as  the  composition  of 
Lord  Bolingbroke ;  so  perfect  is  this  ingenious  imposture  of 
the  spirit,  manner,  and  course  of  thmking  of  the  noble  author. 
I  believe  it  was  written  for  a  wager,  and  fairly  won. 


EDWARD  THE  FOURTH. 

Our  Edward  the  Fourth  was  dissipated  and  voluptuous , 
and  probably  owed  his  crown  to  his  handsomeness,  his  enor- 
mous debts,  and  passion  for  the  fair  sex.  He  had  many 
Jane  Shores.  Honest  Philip  de  Comines,  his  contemporary, 
says,  "  That  what  greatly  contributed  to  his  entering  London 
as  soon  as  he  appeared  at  its  gates,  was  the  great  debts  this 
prince  had  contracted,  which  made  his  creditors  gladly  assist 
him ;  and  the  high  favour  in  which  he  was  held  by  the  boxir- 
geoises,  into  whose  good  graces  he  had  frequently  glided,  and 
who  gained  over  to  him  their  husbands,  who,  for  the  tranquillity 
of  their  lives,  were  glad  to  depose  or  to  raise  monarchs. 
Many  ladies  and  rich  citizens'  wives,  of  whom  formerly  he 
had  great  privacies  and  familiar  acquaintance,  gained  over  to 
him  tlieir  husbands  and  relations." 

This  is  the  description  of  his  voluptuous  life ;  we  must  re- 
collect that  the  writer  had  been  an  eye-witness,  and  was  an 
honest  man : — 


350  EDWARD   THE   FOURTH. 

"  He  had  been  during  the  last  twelve  years  more  accus- 
tomed to  his  ease  and  pleasure  than  any  other  prince  who 
lived  in  his  time.  He  had  nothing  in  his  thoughts  but  les 
dames,  and  of  them  more  than  was  reasonable  ;  and  hunting- 
matches,  good  eating,  and  great  care  of  his  person.  When 
he  went  in  their  seasons  to  these  hunting-matches,  he  always 
had  carried  with  him  great  pavilions  for  les  dames,  and  at 
the  same  time  gave  splendid  entertainments  ;  so  that  it  is  not 
surprising  that  his  person  was  as  jolly  as  any  one  I  ever  saw. 
He  was  then  young,  and  as  handsome  as  any  man  of  his  age  ; 
but  he  has  since  become  enormously  fat." 

Since  I  have  got  old  Philip  in  my  hand,  the  reader  will 
not,  perhaps,  be  displeased,  if  he  attends  to  a  little  more  of 
his  naivete,  which  will  appear  in  the  form  of  a  cofiversazione 
of  the  times.  He  relates  what  passed  between  the  EngUsh 
and  the  French  Monarch. 

"  When  the  ceremony  of  the  oath  was  concluded,  our  king, 
who  was  desirous  of  being  friendly,  began  to  say  to  the  king 
of  England,  in  a  laughing  way,  that  he  must  come  to  Paris, 
and  be  jovial  amongst  our  ladies ;  and  that  he  would  give 
him  the  Cardinal  de  Bourbon  for  his  confessor,  who  would 
very  willmgly  absolve  him  of  any  sin  Avhich  perchance  he 
might  commit.  The  king  of  England  seemed  well  pleased  at 
the  invitation,  and  laughed  heartily;  for  he  knew  that  the 
said  cardinal  was  un  fort  bon  compagnon.  When  the  king 
was  returning,  he  spoke  on  the  road  to  me  ;  and  said  that  he 
did  not  like  to  find  the  king  of  England  so  much  inclined  to 
come  to  Paris.  '  He  is,'  said  he,  '  a  very  handsome  king ;  he 
likes  the  women  too  much.  He  may  probably  find  one  at 
I'aris  that  may  make  him  like  to  come  too  often,  or  stay  too 
long.  His  predecessors  have  already  been  too  much  at  Paris 
and  in  Normandy  ; '  and  that  '  his  company  was  not  agree- 
able this  side  of  the  sea ;  but  that,  beyond  the  sea,  he  wished 
to  be  ban  frtre  et  amy.'  " 

I  have  called  Philip  de  Comines  honest.  The  old  writers, 
from  the  simplicity  of  their  style,  usually  receive  this  honour- 


EDWAKD   THE  FOURTH.  351 

able  epithet ;  but  sometimes  they  deserve  it  as  little  as  most 
modern  memoir  writers.  No  enemy  is  indeed  so  terrible  as 
a  man  of  genius.  Comines's  violent  enmity  to  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy,  which  appears  in  these  memoirs,  has  been  traced 
by  the  minute  researchers  of  anecdotes ;  and  the  cause  is  not 
honourable  to  the  memoir-writer,  whose  resentment  was  im- 
placable. De  Comines  was  born  a  subject  of  the  Duke  of 
35urgundy,  and  for  seven  years  had  been  a  favourite  ;  but 
one  day  returning  from  hunting  with  the  Duke,  then  Count 
de  Charolois,  in  famihar  jocularity  he  sat  himself  down  be- 
fore the  prince,  ordering  the  prince  to  pull  olF  his  boots.  The 
count  laughed,  and  did  this ;  but  in  return  for  Comines's 
princely  amusement,  dashed  the  boot  in  his  face,  and  gave 
Comines  a  bloody  nose.  From  that  time  he  was  mortified  in 
the  court  of  Burgundy  by  the  nickname  of  the  hooted  head. 
Comines  long  felt  a  rankling  wound  in  his  mind  ;  and  after 
this  domestic  quarrel,  for  it  was  nothing  more,  he  went  over 
to  the  king  of  France,  and  wrote  oif  his  bile  against  the  Duke 
of  Burgundy  in  these  "  Memoirs,"  Avhich  give  posterity  a 
caricature  likeness  of  that  prince,  whom  he  is  ever  censuring 
for  presumption,  obstinacy,  pride,  and  cruelty.  This  Duke 
of  Burgundy,  however,  it  is  said,  with  many  virtues,  had  but 
one  great  vice,  the  vice  of  sovereigns,  that  of  ambition  ! 

The  impertinence  of  Comines  had  not  been  chastised  with 
great  severity ;  but  the  nickname  was  never  forgiven :  un- 
fortunately for  the  duke,  Comines  was  a  man  of  genius. 
When  we  are  versed  in  the  history  of  the  times,  we  often 
discover  that  memoir-writers  have  some  secret  poison  in  their 
hearts.  Many,  like  Comines,  have  had  the  boot  dashed  on 
their  nose.  Personal  rancour  wonderfully  enlivens  the  style 
of  Lord  Orford  and  Cardinal  de  Retz.  Memoirs  are  often 
dictated  by  its  fiercest  spirit ;  and  then  histories  are  composed 
from  memoirs.  Wliere  is  truth  ?  Not  always  in  histories 
and  memoirs ! 


352  ELIZABETH. 


ELIZABETH. 

This  gi-eat  queen  passionately  admired  handsome  persons, 
and  he  was  already  far  advanced  in  her  favour  who  ap- 
proached her  with  beauty  and  grace.  She  had  so  uncon- 
querable an  aversion  for  men  who  had  been  treated  unfor 
tunately  by  nature,  that  she  could  not  endure  their  presence. 

When  she  issued  from  her  palace,  her  guards  were  careful 
to  disperse  from  before  her  eyes  hideous  and  deformed  peo- 
ple, the  lame,  the  hunchbacked,  «S:c. ;  m  a  word,  all  those 
whose  appearance  might  shock  her  fastidious  sensations. 

"  There  is  this  singular  and  admirable  in  the  conduct  of 
Elizabeth  that  she  made  her  pleasures  subservient  to  her 
poHcy,  and  she  maintained  her  affairs  by  what  in  general 
occasions  the  ruin  of  princes.  So  secret  were  her  amours, 
that  even  to  the  present  day  their  mysteries  cannot  be  pen- 
etrated ;  but  the  utility  she  drew  from  them  is  public,  and 
always  operated  for  the  good  of  her  people.  Her  lovers 
were  her  ministers,  and  her  ministers  were  her  lovers.  Love 
commanded,  love  was  obeyed ;  and  the  reign  of  this  princess 
was  happy,  because  it  was  the  reign  of  Love^  in  which  its 
chains  and  its  slavery  are  hked !  " 

The  origin  of  Raleigh's  advancement  in  the  queen's  graces 
was  by  an  act  of  gallantry.  Raleigh  spoiled  a  new  plush 
cloak,  while  the  queen,  stepping  cautiously  on  this  prodigal's 
footcloth,  shot  forth  a  smile,  in  Avliich  he  read  promotion. 
Captain  Raleigh  soon  became  Sir  Walter,  and  rapidly  ad- 
vanced in  the  queen's  favour. 

Hume  has  furnished  us  with  ample  proofs  of  the  passion 
which  her  courtiers  feigned  for  her,  and  it  remains  a  question 
whether  it  ever  went  further  than  boisterous  or  romantic 
gallantry.  The  secrecy  of  her  amours  is  not  so  wonderful 
as  it  seems,  if  there  were  impediments  to  any  but  exterior 
gallantries.  Hume  has  preserved  in  his  notes  a  letter 
written  by  Raleigh.     It  is  a  perfect  amorous  composition 


ELIZABETH.  353 

After  having  exerted  his  poetic  talents  to  exalt  her  charms 
and  his  affection,  he  concludes,  by  comparing  her  majesty, 
who  was  then  sixty,  to  Venus  and  Diana.  Sir  Walter  was 
not  her  only  courtier  who  wrote  in  this  style.  Even  in  her 
old  age  she  affected  a  strange  fondness  for  music  and  danc- 
ing, with  a  kind  of  childish  simplicity ;  her  court  seemed  a 
court  of  love,  and  she  the  sovereign.  Secretary  Cecil,  the 
youngest  son  of  Lord  Burleigh,  seems  to  have  perfectly  en- 
tered into  her  character.  Lady  Derby  wore  about  her  neck 
and  in  her  bosom  a  portrait ;  the  queen  inquired  about  it, 
but  her  ladysliip  was  anxious  to  conceal  it.  The  queen  in- 
sisted on  having  it ;  and  discovering  it  to  be  the  portrait  of 
young  Cecil,  she  snatched  it  away,  tying  it  upon  her  shoe, 
and  walked  with  it ;  afterwards  she  pinned  it  on  her  elbow, 
and  wore  it  some  time  there.  Secretary  Cecil  hearing  of 
this,  composed  some  verses  and  got  them  set  to  music  ;  this 
music  the  queen  insisted  on  hearing.  In  his  verses  Cecil 
sang  that  he  repined  not,  though  her  majesty  was  pleased  to 
gi'ace  others  ;  he  contented  himself  with  the  favour  she  had 
given  him  by  wearing  his  portrait  on  her  feet  and  on  her 
arms !  The  ^vi-iter  of  the  letter  who  relates  this  anecdote, 
adds,  "  All  these  things  are  very  secret."  In  this  manner 
she  contrived  to  lay  the  fastest  hold  on  her  able  servants,  and 
her  servants  on  her. 

Those  who  are  intimately  acquainted  with  the  private 
anecdotes  of  those  times,  know  what  encouragement  this 
royal  coquette  gave  to  most  who  were  near  her  person. 
Dodd,  in  his  Church  History,  says,  that  the  Earls  of  AiTan 
and  Arundel,  and  Sir  William  Pickering,  "  were  not  out  of 
hopes  of  gaining  Queen  Elizabeth's  aifections  in  a  matrimo- 
nial way." 

She  encouraged  every  person  of  eminence  :  she  even  went 
80  far,  on  the  anniversary  of  her  coronation,  as  publicly  to 
take  a  ring  from  her  finger,  and  put  it  on  the  Duke  of 
Alen9on's  hand.  She  also  ranked  amongst  her  suitors 
Henry  the  Third  of  France,  and  Henry  the  Great. 

VOL.    I.  2.1 


354  ELIZABETH. 

She  never  forgave  Buzenval  for  ridiculing  her  bad  pro- 
nunciation of  the  French  language  ;  and  when  Henry  IV. 
sent  him  over  on  an  embassy,  she  would  not  receive  him. 
So  nice  was  the  irritable  pride  of  this  great  queen,  that  she 
made  her  private  injuries  matters  of  state. 

"  This  queen,"  writes  Du  Maurier,  in  his  Memoires  pour 
servir  a  THistoire  de  la  Hollande,  '*  who  displayed  so  many 
heroic  accomplishments,  had  this  foible,  of  wishing  to  be 
thought  beautiful  by  all  the  world.  I  heard  from  my 
father,  that  at  every  audience  he  had  with  her  majesty, 
she  puUed  off  her  gloves  more  than  a  hundi'ed  times  to 
display  her  hands,  which  indeed  were  very  beautiful  and 
very  white." 

A  not  less  curious  anecdote  relates  to  the  affair  of  the 
Duke  of  Anjou  and  our  Elizabeth ;  it  is  one  more  prool 
of  her  partiality  for  handsome  men.  The  writer  was  Lewis 
Guyon,  a  contemporary. 

"  Francis  Duke  of  Anjou,  being  desirous  of  marrying  a 
crowned  head,  caused  proposals  of  marriage  to  be  made  to 
Elizabeth,  queen  of  England.  Letters  passed  betwixt  them, 
and  their  portraits  were  exchanged.  At  length  her  majesty 
informed  him,  that  she  would  never  contract  a  marriage  with 
any  one  who  sought  her,  if  she  did  not  first  see  his  person. 
If  he  would  not  come,  nothing  more  should  be  said  on  the 
subject.  This  prince,  over-pressed  by  his  young  friends, 
(who  were  as  httle  able  of  judging  as  himself,)  paid  no 
attention  to  the  counsels  of  men  of  maturer  judgment.  He 
passed  over  to  England  without  a  splendid  train.  The  said 
lady  contemplated  liis  person :  she  found  him  iigly,  disfigured 
by  deep  scars  of  the  smallpox,  and  that  he  also  had  an  ill- 
shaped  nose,  with  swellings  in  the  neck  !  All  these  were  so 
many  reasons  with  her,  that  he  could  never  be  admitted  into 
her  good  gi-aces." 

Puttenham,  in  his  very  rare  book  of  the  "  Art  of  Poesie," 
p.  248,  notices  the  grace  and  majesty  of  Elizabeth's  demean- 
our :  *'  Her  stately  manner  of  walk,  with  a  certaine  granditie 


ELIZABETH  355 

rather  than  gravietie,  marching  with  leysure,  which  our  pov- 
ereign  ladye  and  mistresse  is  accustomed  to  doe  generally, 
unless  it  be  when  she  walketh  apace  for  her  pleasure,  or  to 
catch  her  a  heate  in  the  cold  mornings." 

By  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  from  one  of  her 
gentlemen,  we  discover  that  her  usual  habits,  though  studi- 
ous, were  not  of  the  gentlest  kind,  and  that  the  service  she 
exacted  from  her  attendants  was  not  borne  without  concealed 
murmurs.  The  writer  groans  in  secrecy  to  his  friend.  Sir 
John  Stanhope  writes  to  Sir  Robert  Cecil  in  1598  :  "  I  was 
all  the  afternowne  with  her  majestic,  at  my  booke  ;  and  then 
thinking  to  rest  me.  went  in  agayne  with  your  letter.  She 
was  pleased  with  the  Filosofer's  stone,  and  hath  ben  all  this 
daye  reasonably  quyett.  Mr.  Grevell  is  absent,  and  I  am 
tyed  so  as  I  cannot  styrr,  but  shall  be  at  the  wourse  for  yt, 
these  two  dayes !  " 

.  Puttenham,  p.  249,  has  also  recorded  an  honourable  anec- 
dote of  Elizabeth,  and  characteristic  of  that  high  majesty 
which  was  in  her  thoughts,  as  well  as  in  her  actions.  When 
she  came  to  the  crown,  a  knight  of  the  realm,  who  had  in- 
solently behaved  to  her  when  Lady  Elizabeth,  fell  upon  his 
knees  and  besought  her  pardon,  expecting  to  be  sent  to  the 
Tower  :  she  replied  mildly,  "  Do  you  not  know  that  we  are 
descended  of  the  lion,  whose  nature  is  not  to  harme  or  prey 
upon  the  mouse,  or  any  other  such  small  vermin  ?  " 

Queen  EHzabeth  was  taught  to  write  by  tlie  celebrated 
Roger  Ascham.  Her  writing  is  extremely  beautiful  and 
correct,  as  may  be  seen  by  examining  a  little  manuscrii)t 
book  of  prayers,  preserved  in  the  British  Museum.  I  have 
seen  her  first  writing-book,  preserved  at  Oxford  in  the  Bod- 
leian Library :  the  gradual  improvement  in  her  majesty's 
handwriting  is  very  honouralde  to  her  diligence  ;  but  the  most 
curious  thing  is  the  paper  on  which  she  tried  her  pens  ;  this 
she  usually  did  by  writing  the  name  of  her  beloved  brother 
Edward ;  a  proof  of  the  early  and  ardent  attachment  she 
formed  to  that  amiable  prince. 


356  THE   CHINESE   LANGUAGE. 

The  education  of  Elizabeth  had  been  severely  classical  ? 
she  thought  and  she  wrote  in  all  the  spirit  of  the  characters 
of  antiquity;  and  her  speeches  and  her  letters  are  studded 
with  apophthegms,  and  a  terseness  of  ideas  and  language,  that 
give  an  exalted  idea  of  her  mind.  In  her  evasive  answers 
to  the  commons,  in  reply  to  their  petitions  to  her  majesty  to 
marry,  she  has  employed  an  energetic  word  :  "  Were  I  to 
tell  you  that  I  do  not  mean  to  marry,  I  might  ?ay  less  than 
I  did  intend  ;  and  were  I  to  tell  you  that  I  do  mean  to 
marry,  I  might  say  more  than  it  is  proper  for  you  to  know  ; 
therefore  I  give  you  an  answer,  ansay^erless  ! " 


THE   CHINESE  LANGUAGE. 

The  Chinese  language  is  like  no  other  on  the  globe  :  it  is 
said  to  contain  not  more  than  about  three  hundred  and  thirty 
words,  but  it  is  by  no  means  monotonous,  for  it  has  four  ac- 
cents ;  the  even,  the  raised,  the  lessened,  and  the  returnihg, 
wliich  multiply  every  word  into  four ;  as  difficult,  says  Mr. 
Astle,  for  an  European  to  understand,  as  it  is  for  a  Chinese 
to  comprehend  the  six  pronunciations  of  the  French  e.  In 
fact,  they  can  so  diversify  their  monosyllabic  words  by  the 
different  tones  which  they  give  them,  that  the  same  character 
differently  accented  signifies  sometimes  ten  or  more  different 
things. 

P.  Bourgeois,  one  of  the  missionaries,  attempted,  after  ten 
months'  residence  at  Pekin,  to  preach  in  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage. These  are  the  words  of  the  good  father :  '"  God 
knows  how  much  this  first  Chinese  sermon  cost  me !  I  can 
assure  you  this  language  resembles  no  other.  The  same 
word  has  never  but  one  termination ;  and  then  adieu  to  all 
that  in  our  declensions  distinguishes  the  gender,  and  the 
number  of  things  we  would  speak  :  adieu,  in  the  verbs,  to  all 
which  might  explain  the  active  person,  how  and  in  what 


THE   CHINESE  LANGUAGE.  357 

time  it  acts,  if  it  acts  alone  or  with  others  :  in  a  word,  with 
the  Chinese,  the  same  word  is  substantive,  adjective,  verb, 
singular,  plural,  masculine,  feminine,  «Scc.  It  is  the  person 
who  hears  who  must  arrange  the  circumstances,  and  guess 
them.  Add  to  all  this,  that  all  the  words  of  this  language 
are  reduced  to  three  hundred  and  a  few  more ;  that  they  are 
pronounced  in  so  many  different  ways,  that  they  signify 
eighty  thousand  different  things,  which  are  expressed  by  as 
many  different  characters.  This  is  not  all :  the  arrangement 
of  all  these  monosyllables  appears  to  be  under  no  general 
rule  ;  so  that  to  know  the  language  after  having  learnt  the 
words,  we  must  learn  every  particular  phrase :  the  least  in- 
version would  make  you  unintelligible  to  three  parts  of  the 
Chinese. 

"  I  will  give  you  an  example  of  their  words.  They  told 
me  chou  signifies  a  book :  so  that  I  thought  whenever  the 
word  chuu  was  pronounced,  a  book  was  the  subject.  Not  at 
all !  Chou,  the  next  time  I  heard  it,  I  found  signified  a  tree. 
Now  I  was  to  recollect ;  chou  was  a  book  or  a  tree.  But  this 
amounted  to  nothing ;  chou,  I  found,  expressed  also  great 
heats;  chou  is  to  relate;  chou  i^  the  Aurora  ;  chou  means 
to  be  accustomed ;  chou  expresses  the  loss  of  a  wager,  &c. 
I  should  not  finish,  were  I  to  attempt  to  give  you  all  its  sig- 
nifications. 

"  Notwithstanding  these  singular  difficulties,  could  one  but 
find  a  help  in  the  perusal  of  their  books,  1  should  not  com- 
plain. But  this  is  impossible !  Their  language  is  quite 
different  from  that  of  simple  conversation.  What  will  ever 
be  an  insurmountable  difficulty  to  every  European  is  the 
pronunciation ;  every  word  may  be  pronounced  in  five  dif 
ferent  tones,  yet  every  tone  is  not  so  distinct  that  an  un- 
practised ear  can  easily  distinguish  it.  These  monosyllables 
fly  with  amazing  rapidity  ;  then  they  are  continually  dis- 
guised by  elisions,  which  sometimes  hardly  leave  any  thing 
of  two  monosyllables.  From  an  aspirated  tone  you  must 
pass  immediately   to  an  even  one ;   from  a  whisthng  note 


358  MEDICAL  MUSIC. 

to  an  inward  one  :  sometimes  your  voice  must  proceed  from 
the  palate ;  sometimes  it  must  be  guttural,  and  almost  always 
nasal.  I  recited  my  sermon  at  least  fifty  times  to  my  servant 
before  I  spoke  it  in  public ;  and  yet  I  am  told,  though  he 
continually  corrected  me,  that  of  the  ten  parts  of  the  sermon 
(as  the  Chinese  express  themselves),  they  hardly  understood 
three.  Fortunately  the  Chinese  are  wonderfully  patient ; 
and  they  are  astonished  that  any  ignorant  stranger  should  be 
able  to  learn  two  words  of  their  language." 

It  has  been  said  that  "  Satu-es  are  often  composed  in 
Cliina,  which,  if  you  attend  to  the  characters,  their  import  is 
pure  and  sublime  ;  but  if  you  regard  the  tone  only,  they  con- 
tain a  meaning  ludicrous  or  obscene.  In  the  Chinese  one 
word  sometimes  corresponds  to  three  or  four  thousand  char- 
acters ;  a  property  quite  opposite  to  that  of  our  language, 
in  which  myriads  of  different  words  are  expressed  by  the 
same  letters." 


MEDICAL  MUSIC. 

In  the  Philosophical  Magazine  for  May,  1806,  we  find 
that  "  several  of  the  medical  literati  on  the  continent  are  at 
present  engaged  in  making  inquiries  and  experiments  upon 
the  influence  of  music  in  the  cure  of  diseases."  The  learned 
Dusaux  is  said  to  lead  the  band  of  this  new  tribe  of  amateurs 
and  cognoscenti. 

The  subject  excited  my  ciu-iosity,  though  I  since  have 
found  that  it  is  no  new  discovery. 

There  is  a  curious  article  in  Dr.  Bumey's  History  of 
Music,  "On  the  medicinal  Powers  attributed  to  Music  by 
the  Ancients,"  which  he  derived  from  the  leanied  labours  of 
a  modern  physician,  M.  Burette,  who  doubtless  could  play  a 
tune  to,  as  weU  as  prescribe  one  to,  his  patient.  He  con- 
ceives that  music  can  reheve  the  pains  of  the  sciatica  ;  and 
that  independent  of  the  greater  or  less  skill  of  the  musician,  by 


MEDICAL   MUSIC.  359 

flattering  the  ear,  and  diverting  the  attention,  and  occasioning 
certain  vibrations  of  the  nerves,  it  can  remove  those  obstruc- 
tions which  occasion  this  disorder.  ]\I.  Burette,  and  many 
modern  physicians  and  |)hilosophers,  have  believed  that  music 
has  the  power  of  affecting  the  mind,  and  the  whole  nervous 
system,  so  as  to  give  a  temporary  relief  in  certain  diseases, 
and  even  a  radical  cure.  De  Mairan,  Biancliini,  and  other 
respectable  names,  have  pursued  the  same  career.  But  the 
ancients  record  miracles  ! 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Mitchell,  of  Brighthelmstone,  wrote  a  dis- 
sertation, "  De  Arte  Medendi  apud  Priscos,  Musices  ope  atque 
Carminnmr  printed  for  J.  Nichols,  1 783.  He  writes  under 
the  assumed  name  of  Michael  Gaspar  ;  but  whether  this 
learned  dissertator  be  grave  or  jocular,  more  than  one  critic 
has  not  been  able  to  resolve  me.  I  suspect  it  to  be  a  satire 
on  the  parade  of  Germanic  erudition,  by  which  they  often 
prove  a  point  by  the  weakest  analogies  and  most  fanciful 
conceits. 

Amongst  half-civilized  nations,  diseases  have  been  gener- 
ally attributed  to  the  influence  of  evil  spirits.  The  depression 
of  mind  which  is  generally  attendant  on  sickness,  and  the 
delirium  accompanying  certain  stages  of  disease,  seem  to 
have  been  considered  as  especially  denoting  the  immediate 
influence  of  a  demon.  The  effect  of  music  in  raising  the 
energies  of  the  mind,  or  what  we  commonly  call  animal 
spii'its,  was  obvious  to  early  observation.  Its  power  of  at- 
tracting strong  attention  may  in  some  cases  have  appeared 
to  affect  even  those  who  laboured  under  a  considerable  de- 
gree of  mental  disorder.  The  accompanying  depression  of 
mind  was  considered  as  a  part  of  the  disease,  perhaps  rightly 
enough,  and  music  was  prescribed  as  a  remedy  to  remove  the 
symptom,  when  experience  had  not  ascertained  the  probable 
cause.  Homer,  whose  heroes  exhibit  high  passions,  but  not 
refined  manners,  represents  the  Grecian  army  as  employing 
music  to  stay  the  raging  of  the  plague.  The  Jewish  nation, 
in  the  time  of  King  David,  appear  not  to  have  been  much 


360  MEDICAL  MUSIC. 

further  advanced  in  civilization ;  accordingly  we  find  David 
employed  in  his  youth  to  remove  the  mental  derangement  of 
Saul  by  his  harp.  The  method  of  cure  was  suggested  as  a 
common  one  in  those  days,  by  Saul's  servants  ;  and  the  suc- 
cess is  not  mentioned  as  a  miracle.  Pindar,  with  poetic 
license,  speaks  of  iEsculapius  healing  acute  disorders  with 
soothing  songs  ;  but  -lEsculapius,  whether  man  or  deity,  or 
between  both,  is  a  physician  of  the  days  of  barbarism  and 
fable.  Pliny  scouts  the  idea  that  music  should  affect  real 
bodily  injury,  but  quotes  Homer  on  the  subject ;  mentions 
Theophrastus  as  suggesting  a  tune  for  the  cure  of  the  hip 
gout,  and  Cato  as  entertaining  a  fancy  that  it  had  a  good 
effect  when  limbs  were  out  of  joint,  and  likewise  that  Varro 
thought  it  good  for  the  gout.  Aulus  Gellius  cites  a  work  of 
Theophrastus,  which  recommends  music  as  a  specific  for  the 
bite  of  a  viper.  Boyle  and  Shakspeare  mention  the  effects 
of  music  super  vesicam.  Kircher's  "  Musurgia,"  and  Swin- 
burne's Travels,  relate  the  effects  of  music  on  those  who  are 
bitten  by  the  tarantula.  Sir  W.  Temple  seems  to  have 
given  credit  to  the  stories  of  the  power  of  music  over  dis- 
eases. 

The  ancients,  indeed,  record  miracles  in  the  tales  they  re- 
late of  the  medicinal  powers  of  music.  A  fever  is  removed 
by  a  song,  and  deafness  is  cured  by  a  trumpet,  and  the  pesti- 
lence is  chased  away  by  the  sweetness  of  an  hai-monious 
lyre.  That  deaf  people  can  hear  best  in  a  great  noise,  is  a 
fact  alleged  by  some  moderns,  in  favour  of  the  ancient  story 
of  curing  deafness  by  a  trumpet.  Dr.  Willis  tells  us,  says 
Dr.  Burney,  of  a  lady  who  could  hear  only  while  a  drum  was 
heating,  insomuch  that  her  husband,  the  account  says,  hired 
a  drummer  as  her  servant,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  pleasure  of 
her  conversation. 

Music  and  the  sounds  of  instruments,  says  the  lively  Vig- 
neul  de  Marville,  contribute  to  the  health  of  the  body  and 
the  mind  ;  they  quicken  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  they  dis- 
sipate vapours,  and  open  the  vessels,  so  that  the  action   of 


MEDICAL  MUSIC.  301 

perspiiation  is  freer.  He  tells  a  story  of  a  person  of  distinc- 
tion, who  assured  him,  that  once  being  suddenly  seized  by 
violent  illness,  instead  of  a  consultation  of  physicians,  he  im- 
mediately called  a  band  of  musicians ;  and  their  violins 
played  so  well  in  his  inside,  that  his  bowels  became  perfectly 
in  tune,  and  in  a  few  hours  were  harmoniously  becalmed.  I 
once  heard  a  story  of  FarineUi  the  famous  singer,  who  was 
sent  for  to  Madrid,  to  try  the  effect  of  his  magical  voice  on 
the  king  of  Spain.  His  majesty  was  buried  in  the  prof bundest 
melancholy  :  nothing  could  raise  an  emotion  in  him  ;  he  lived 
in  a  total  oblivion  of  life  ;  he  sate  in  a  darkened  chamber, 
entirely  given  up  to  the  most  distressing  kind  of  madness. 
The  physicians  ordered  Farinelli  at  first  to  sing  in  an  outer 
room  ;  and  for  the  first  day  or  two  this  was  done,  without  any 
effect  on  the  royal  patient.  At  length  it  was  observed,  that 
the  king,  awakening  from  his  stupor,  seemed  to  listen  ;  on 
the  next  day  tears  were  seen  startmg  in  his  eyes ;  the  day 
after  he  ordered  the  door  of  his  chamber  to  be  left  open — 
and  at  length  the  perturbed  spirit  entirely  left  our  modem 
Saul,  and  the  medicinal  voice  of  Farinelli  effected  what  no 
other  medicine  could. 

I  now  prepare  to  give  the  reader  ?,ome  facts,  which  he  may 
consider  as  a  trial  of  credulity. — Their  authorities  are,  how- 
ever, not  contemptible. — Naturalists  assert  that  animals  and 
birds,  as  well  as  "  knotted  oaks,"  as  Congreve  informs  us,  are 
sensible  to  the  charms  of  music.  This  may  serve  as  an  in- 
stance : — "An  officer  was  confined  in  the  Bastile  ;  he  begged 
the  governor  to  permit  him  the  use  of  his  lute,  to  soften,  by 
the  harmonies  of  his  instrument,  the  rigours  of  his  prison. 
At  the  end  of  a  few  days,  this  modern  Orpheus,  playing  on 
his  lute,  was  greatly  astonished  to  see  frisking  out  of  their 
holes  great  numbers  of  mice ;  and  descending  from  their 
woven  habitations  crowds  of  spiders,  who  formed  a  circle 
about  him,  while  he  continued  breathing  his  soul-subduing 
instrument.  He  was  petrified  with  astonishment.  Having 
ceased  to  play,  the  assembly,  who  did  not  come  to  see  hid 


3G2  MEDICAL  MUSIC. 

person,  but  to  hear  his  instrument,  immediately  broke  up. 
As  he  had  a  great  dishke  to  spiders,  it  was  two  days  before 
he  ventured  again  to  touch  his  instrument.  At  length,  having 
overcome,  for  the  novelty  of  his  company,  his  dislike  of 
them,  he  recommenced  his  concert,  when  the  assembly  Avas 
by  far  more  numerous  than  at  first ;  and  in  the  course  of 
(hrther  time,  he  found  himself  surrounded  by  a  hundred 
musical  amateurs.  Having  thus  succeeded  in  attracting  this 
company,  he  treacherously  contrived  to  get  rid  of  them  at  his 
will.  For  this  purpose  he  begged  the  keeper  to  give  him  a 
cat,  which  he  put  in  a  cage,  and  let  loose  at  the  very  instant 
when  the  httle  hairy  people  were  most  entranced  by  the  Or- 
phean skill  he  displayed. 

The  Abbe  Olivet  has  described  an  amusement  of  Pelisson 
during  his  confinement  in  the  Bastile,  which  consisted  in 
feeding  a  spider,  which  he  had  discovered  forming  its  web  in 
the  corner  of  the  small  window.  For  some  time  he  placed 
his  flies  at  the  edge,  while  his  valet,  who  was  with  him,  plaved 
on  a  bagpipe  :  little  by  little,  the  spider  used  itself  to  distin- 
guish the  sound  of  the  instrument,  and  issued  from  its  hole 
to  run  and  catch  its  prey.  Thus  calling  it  always  by  the 
same  sound,  and  placing  the  flies  at  a  still  greater  distance, 
he  succeeded,  after  several  months,  to  drill  the  spider  by 
regular  exercise,  so  that  at  length  it  never  failed  appearing 
at  the  first  sound  to  seize  on  the  fly  provided  for  it,  even  on 
the  knees  of  the  prisoner. 

Mar\-ille  has  given  us  the  following  curious  anecdote  on 
this  subject.  He  says,  that  doubting  the  truth  of  those  who 
say  that  the  love  of  music  is  a  natural  taste,  especially  the 
sound  of  instruments,  and  that  beasts  themselves  are  touched 
by  it,  being  one  day  in  the  country  I  tried  an  experiment. 
While  a  man  was  playing  on  the  trump  marine,  I  made  my 
observations  on  a  cat,  a  dog,  a  horse,  an  ass,  a  hind,  cows,  tsmall 
bii-ds,  and  a  cock  and  hens,  who  were  in  a  yard,  under  a  window 
on  which  I  was  leaning.  I  did  not  perceive  that  the  cat  was 
the  least  affected,  and  I  even  judged,  by  her  an-,  that  she 


MEDICAL  MUSIC.  3G3 

would  have  given  all  the  instruments  in  the  world  for  a 
mouse,  sleeping  in  the  sun  all  the  time ;  the  horse  stopped 
short  from  time  to  time  before  the  window,  raising  his  head 
up  now  and  then,  as  he  was  feeding  on  the  grass ;  the  dog 
continued  for  above  an  hour  seated  on  his  hind  legs,  looking 
steadfastly  at  the  player ;  the  ass  did  not  discover  the  least 
indication  of  his  being  touched,  eating  his  thistles  peaceably ; 
the  hind  lifted  up  her  large  wide  ears,  and  seemed  very  atten 
tive ;  the  cows  slept  a  little,  and  after  gazing,  as  though  thej- 
had  been  acquainted  with  us,  went  forward  ;  some  little  bud.-* 
who  were  in  an  aviary,  and  others  on  the  trees  and  bushes, 
almost  tore  their  little  throats  with  singing;  but  the  co(;k, 
who  minded  only  his  hens,  and  the  hens,  who  were  solely 
employed  in  scraping  a  neighbouring  dunghill,  did  not  show 
m  any  manner  that  they  took  the  least  pleasure  in  hearing 
the  trump  marine. 

A  modern  traveller  assures  us,  that  he  has  repeatedly  ob- 
served in  the  island  of  Madeira,  that  the  lizards  are  attracted 
by  the  notes  of  music,  and  that  he  has  assembled  a  number 
of  them  by  the  powers  of  his  instrument.  "When  the  negroes 
catch  them,  for  food,  they  accompany  the  chase  by  whistling 
some  tune,  Avhich  has  always  the  effect  of  drawing  great 
numbers  towards  them.  Stedman,  in  his  Expedition  to  Suri- 
nam, describes  certain  sibyls  among  the  negroes,  who,  among 
several  singular  practices,  can  charm  or  conjure  down  from 
the  tree  certain  serpents,  who  will  wreath  about  the  arms, 
neck,  and  breast  of  the  pretended  sorceress,  listening  to  her 
voice.  The  sacred  writers  speak  of  the  charming  of  adders 
and  serpents  ;  and  nothing,  says  he,  is  more  notorious  than 
that  the  eastern  Indians  will  rid  the  houses  of  the  most  venom- 
ous snakes,  by  charming  them  with  the  sound  of  a  flute, 
which  calls  them  out  of  their  holes.  These  anecdotes  seem 
fuUv  confirmed  by  Sir  William  Jones,  in  his  dissertation  on 
the  musical  modes  of  the  Hindus. 

"After  food,  when  the  operations  of  digestion  and  absorp- 
tion give  so  much  employment  to  the  vessels,  that  a  tempo- 


3^34  MEDICAL  MUSIC. 

rary  state  of  mental  repose  must  be  found,  especially  in  hot 
climates,  essential  to  health,  it  seems  reasonable  to  believe 
that  a  few  agreeable  airs,  either  heard  or  played  without 
effort,  must  have  all  the  good  effects  of  sleep,  and  none  of  its 
disadvantages ;  putting  the  soul  in  tune,  as  Milton  says,  for 
any  subsequent  exertion  ;  an  experiment  often  successfully 
made  by  myself.  I  have  been  assured  by  a  credible  eye- 
witness, that  two  wild  antelopes  used  often  to  come  from  their 
woods  to  the  place  where  a  more  savage  beast,  Sinijuddaulah, 
entertained  liimself  with  concerts,  and  that  they  Ustened  to 
the  strains  with  an  appearance  of  pleasure,  till  the  monster, 
in  whose  soul  there  was  no  music,  shot  one  of  them  to  dis- 
play his  archery.  A  learned  native  told  me  that  he  had 
frequently  seen  the  most  venomous  and  maUgnant  snakes 
leave  their  holes  upon  hearing  tunes  on  a  flute,  which,  as  he 
supposed,  gave  them  peculiar  delight.  An  intelligent  Per- 
sian declared  he  had  more  than  once  been  present,  when  a 
celebrated  lutenist,  sumamed  Bulbul  (i.  e.  the  nightingale), 
was  playing  to  a  large  company,  in  a  grove  near  Schiraz, 
where  he  distinctly  saw  the  nightingales  trying  to  vie  with 
the  musician,  sometimes  warbUng  on  the  trees,  sometimes 
fluttering  from  branch  to  branch,  as  if  they  wished  to  ap- 
proach the  instrument,  and  at  length  dropping  on  the  ground 
in  a  kind  of  ecstasy,  from  which  they  were  soon  raised,  he 
assured  me,  by  a  change  in  the  mode." 

Jackson  of  Exeter,  in  reply  to  the  question  of  Dryden, 
"  What  passion  cannot  music  raise  or  quell  ?  "  sarcastically 
returns,  "  What  passion  can  music  raise  or  quell  ?  "  Would 
not  a  savage,  who  had  never  listened  to  a  musical  instrument, 
feel  certain  emotions  at  listening  to  one  for  the  first  ;ime  ? 
But  civihzed  man  is,  no  doubt,  particularly  affected  by  as- 
sociation of  ideas,  as  aU  pieces  of  national  music  evidently 
prove. 

The  Ranz  des  Vaches,  mentioned  by  Rousseau  in  his 
Dictionary  of  Music,  though  without  any  thing  striking  in 
the  composition,  has  such  a  powerful  influence  over  the  Swiss, 


MINUTE  WRITING.  365 

and  impresses  them  with  so  violent  a  desire  to  return  to  their 
own  country,  that  it  is  forbidden  to  be  played  in  the  Swiss 
regiments,  in  the  French  service,  on  pain  of  death.  There 
is  also  a  Scotch  tune,  which  has  the  same  effect  on  some  of 
our  North  Britons.  In  one  of  our  battles  in  Calabria,  a 
bagpiper  of  the  78th  Highland  regiment,  when  the  light  in- 
fantry charged  the  French,  posted  himself  on  the  right,  and 
remained  in  his  solitary  situation  during  the  whole  of  the 
battle,  encouraging  the  men  with  a  famous  Highland  charg- 
ing tune ;  and  actually  upon  the  retreat  and  complete  rout 
of  the  French  changed  it  to  another,  equally  celebrated  in 
Scotland,  upon  the  retreat  of  and  victory  over  an  enemy. 
His  next-hand  neighbour  guarded  him  so  well  that  he  es- 
caped unhurt.  This  was  the  spirit  of  the  "  Last  Minstrel," 
who  uifused  courage  among  his  countrymen,  by  possessing  it 
in  so  animated  a  degree,  and  in  so  venerable  a  character. 


ISnNUTE  WRITING. 

The  Iliad  of  Homer  in  a  nutshell,  which  Pliny  says  that 
Cicero  once  saw,  it  is  pretended  might  have  been  a  fact, 
however  to  some  it  may  appear  impossible,  ^lian  notices 
an  artist  who  wrote  a  distich  in  letters  of  gold,  which  he  en- 
closed in  the  rind  of  a  grain  of  corn. 

Antiquity  and  modern  times  record  many  such  penmen, 
whose  glory  consisted  in  A\Titing  in  so  small  a  hand  that  the 
writing  could  not  be  legible  to  the  naked  eye.  Menage  men- 
tions, he  saw  whole  sentences  which  were  not  perceptible  to 
the  eye  without  the  microscope ;  pictures  and  portraits  which 
appeared  at  first  to  be  lines  and  scratches  thrown  down  at 
random;  one  formed  the  face  of  the  Dauphiness  with  the 
mo3t  correct  resemblance.  He  read  an  Italian  poem,  in 
praise  of  this  princess,  containing  some  thousand  verses, 
written  by  an  oflBcer,  in  a  space  of  a  foot  and  a  half     Tliis 


366  MINUTE  WRITING. 

species  of  curious  idleness  has  not  been  lost  in  our  own  coun- 
try ;  where  this  minute  writing  has  equalled  any  on  record. 
Peter  Bales,  a  celebrated  caligrapher  in  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth, astonished  the  eyes  of  beholders  by  showing  them  what 
they  could  not  see  ;  for  in  the  Harleian  MSS.  530,  we  have 
a  narrative  of  "  a  rare  piece  of  work  brought  to  pass  by 
Peter  Bales,  an  Englishman,  and  a  clerk  of  the  chancery  ;  " 
it  seems  by  the  description  to  have  been  the  whole  Bible  "  in 
an  English  walnut  no  bigger  than  a  hen's  egg.  The  nut 
holdeth  the  book  :  there  are  as  many  leaves  in  his  little  book 
as  the  great  Bible,  and  he  hath  written  as  much  in  one  of  his 
little  leaves  as  a  great  leaf  of  the  Bible.  We  are  told  that 
this  wonderfully  unreadable  copy  of  the  Bible  was  "  seen  by 
many  thousands."  There  is  a  drawing  of  the  head  of  Charles 
I.  in  tlie  library  of  St.  John's  College  at  Oxford,  wholly  com- 
posed of  minute  written  characters,  which,  at  a  small  distance, 
resemble  the  lines  of  an  engraving.  The  lines  Qf  the  head, 
and  the  ruff,  are  said  to  contain  the  book  of  Psalms,  the 
Creed,  and  the  Lord's  Prayer.  In  the  British  Museum  we 
find  a  drawing  representing  the  portrait  of  Queen  Anne,  not 
much  above  the  size  of  the  hand.  On  this  drawing  appeal's 
a  number  of  lines  and  scratches,  which  the  librarian  assures 
the  marvelUng  spectator  includes  the  entire  contents  of  a  thin 
folio,  which  on  this  occasion  is  carried  in  the  hand. 

The  learned  Huet  asserts  that,  like  the  rest  of  the  world, 
he  considered  as  a  fiction  the  story  of  that  indefatigable  trifier 
who  is  said  to  have  inclosed  the  Iliad  in  a  nutshell.  Ex- 
amining the  matter  more  closely,  he  thought  it  possible.  One 
day  this  learned  man  trifled  half  an  hour  in  demonstrating  it. 
A  piece  of  vellum,  about  ten  inches  in  length  and  eight  in 
width,  pliant  and  firm,  can  be  folded  up,  and  inclosed  in  the 
shell  of  a  large  walnut.  It  can  hold  in  its  breadth  one  line, 
which  can  contain  30  verses,  and  in  its  length  250  lines. 
With  a  crow-quill  the  WTiting  can  be  perfect.  A  page  of 
this  piece  of  vellum  will  then  contain  7500  verses,  and  the 
reverse  as  much  ;  the  whole  15,000  verses  of  the  Iliad.    And 


NUMERICAL  FIGUKES.  367 

this  he  proved  by  using  a  piece  of  paper,  and  with  a  common 
pen.  The  thing  is  possible  to  be  effected  ;  and  if  on  any 
occasion  paper  should  be  most  excessively  rare,  it  may  be 
useful  to  know  that  a  volume  of  matter  may  be  contained  in 
a  sinerle  leaf. 


NmiERICAL  FIGURES. 

The  learned,  after  many  contests,  have  at  length  agreed 
that  the  numerical  figures  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9,  usually 
called  Arabic,  are  of  Indian  origin.  The  Ai-abians  do  not 
pretend  to  have  been  the  inventors  of  them,  but  borrowed 
them  from  the  Indian  nations.  The  numeral  characters  of 
the  Bramins,  the  Persians,  and  the  Arabians,  and  other 
eastern  nations,  are  similar.  They  appear  afterwards  to  have 
been  introduced  mto  several  European  nations,  by  their  re- 
spective travellers,  who  returned  from  the  East.  They  were 
admitted  into  calendai's  and  chronicles,  but  they  were  not  in- 
troduced into  charters,  says  Mr.  Astle,  before  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  Spaniards,  no  doubt,  derived  their  use  from 
the  Moors  who  invaded  them.  In  1240,  the  Alphonsean 
astronomical  tables  were  made  by  the  order  of  Alphonsus  X. 
by  a  Jew,  and  an  Arabian ;  they  used  these  numerals,  from 
whence  the  Spaniards  contend  that  they  were  first  introduced 
by  them. 

They  were  not  generally  used  in  Gennany  until  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fourteenth  century  ;  but  in  general  the  forms 
of  the  ci[)hers  were  not  permanently  fixed  there  tiU  after  the 
year  1531.  The  Russians  were  strangers  to  them,  before 
Peter  the  Great  had  finished  his  travels  in  the  beginning  of 
the  last  century. 

The  origin  of  these  useful  characters  with  the  Indians  and 
Arabians,  is  attributed  to  their  great  skill  in  the  arts  of  tistron- 
omy  and  of  arithmetic,  which  required  more  convenient  char- 
acters than  alphabetic  letters,  for  the  expressing  of  numbers. 


368  NUMERICAL  FIGURES. 

Before  the  introduction  into  Europe  of  these  Arabic  numer- 
als, they  used  alphabetical  characters,  or  Roman  numerals. 
The  learned  authors  of  the  Nouveau  Traite  Diplomatique, 
the  most  valuable  work  on  every  thing  concerning  the  arts 
and  progress  of  writing,  have  given  some  curious  notices  on 
the  origin  of  the  Roman  numerals.  Originally  men  counted 
by  their  fingers ;  thus  to  mark  the  first  four  numbers  they 
used  an  I,  which  naturally  represents  them.  To  max-k  the 
fifth,  they  chose  a  V,  which  is  made  out  by  bending  inwards 
the  three  middle  fingers,  and  stretching  out  only  the  thumb 
and  the  little  finger ;  and  for  the  tenth  they  used  an  X, 
which  is  a  double  V,  one  placed  topsyturvy  under  the  other. 
From  this  the  progression  of  these  numbers  is  always  from 
one  to  five,  and  from  five  to  ten.  The  hundred  was  signified 
by  the  capital  letter  of  that  word  in  Latin,  C — centum.  The 
other  letters  D  for  500,  and  M  for  a  1000,  were  afterwards 
added.  They  subsequently  abbreviated  their  characters,  by 
placing  one  of  these  figures  before  another ;  and  the  figure 
of  less  value  before  a  higher  number,  denotes  that  so  much 
may  be  deducted  from  a  greater  number ;  for  instance,  IV 
signifies  five  less  one,  that  is  four  ;  IX  ten  less  one,  that  is 
nine  ;  but  these  abbreviations  are  not  found  amongst  the 
ancient  monuments.  These  numerical  letters  are  still  con- 
tinued by  us,  in  the  accounts  of  our  Exchequer. 

That  men  counted  originally  by  their  fingers,  is  no  im- 
probable supposition ;  it  is  still  naturally  practised  by  the 
people.  In  semi-civilized  states,  small  stones  have  been 
used,  and  the  etymologists  derive  the  words  calculate  and 
calculations  from  calculus,  the  Latin  term  for  a  pebble-stone, 
and  by  which  they  denominated  their  counters  used  for  arith- 
metical computations. 

Pi-ofeosor  Ward,  in  a  learned  dissertation  on  this  subject 
in  the  Philosophical  Transactions,  concludes  that  it  is 
easier  to  falsify  the  Arabic  ciphers  than  the  Roman  alpha- 
betic numerals ;  when  1375  is  dated  in  Arabic  ciphers,  if  the 
3  is  only  changed  into  an  0,  three  centuries  are  taken  away ; 


ENGLISH   ASTROLOGERS.  SG9 

if  llie  3  is  made  into  a  9  and  take  away  the  1,  four  hundred 
years  are  lost.  Such  accidents  have  assuredly  produced  much 
confusion  among  our  ancient  manuscripts,  and  still  do  in  our 
jirinted  books ;  whii-h  is  the  reason  that  Dr.  Robertson  in  liis 
histories  has  also  preferred  writing  his  dates  in  words,  rather 
than  confide  them  to  the  care  of  a  negligent  pi-inter.  Gib- 
bon observes,  that  some  remarkable  mistakes  have  happened 
by  the  word  7nil.  in  IMSS.,  which  is  an  abbreviation  for 
soldiers,  or  for  thousands  ;  and  to  this  blunder  he  attributes 
the  mcredible  numbers  of  martyrdoms,  which  cannot  other- 
wise be  accounted  for  by  historical  records. 


ENGLISH    ASTROLOGERS. 

A  BELIEF  in  judicial  astrology  can  now  only  exist  in  the 
people,  who  may  be  said  to  have  no  belief  at  all ;  for  mere 
traditional  sentiments  can  hardly  be  said  to  amount  to  a 
belief.  But  a  faith  in  this  ridiculous  system  in  our  country 
is  of  late  existence ;  and  was  a  favourite  superstition  with 
the  learned. 

When  Charles  the  First  was  confined,  Lilly  the  astrologer 
was  consulted  for  the  hour  which  would  favour  his  escape. 

A  story,  which  strongly  proves  how  greatly  Charles  the 
Second  was  bigoted  to  judicial  astrology,  is  recorded  in  Bur- 
net's History  of  his  Own  Times. 

The  most  respectable  characters  of  the  age.  Sir  William 
Dugdale,  Elias  Ashmole,  Dr.  Grew,  and  otliers,  were  mem- 
bers of  an  astrological  club.  Congreve's  character  of  Fore- 
.sight,  in  Love  for  Love,  was  then  no  uncommon  person, 
though  the  humour  now  is  scarcely  intelligible. 

Dryden  cast  the  nativities  of  his  sons ;  and,  what  is  re- 
markable, liis  prediction  relating  to  his  son  Charles  took 
place.  This  incident  is  of  so  late  a  date,  one  might  hope  it 
would  have  been  cleared  up. 

VOL.  I.  24 


370  ENGLISH    ASTROLOGERS. 

In  1670,  the  passion  for  horoscopes  and  expounding  the 
Btars  prevailed  in  France  among  the  first  rank.  The  new- 
born child  was  usually  presented  naked  to  the  astrologer,  who 
read  the  first  lineaments  in  its  forehead,  and  the  transverse 
lines  in  its  hand,  and  thence  wrote  down  its  future  destiny. 
Catherine  de  Medicis  brought  Henry  IV.,  then  a  child,  to 
old  Nostradamus,  whom  antiquaries  esteem  more  for  his 
chronicle  of  Provence  than  his  vaticinating  powers.  The 
sight  of  the  reverend  seer,  Avith  a  beard  which  "  streamed 
like  a  meteor  in  the  air,"  terrified  the  future  hero  who  di'eaded 
a  whipping  from  so  grave  a  personage.  One  of  these  magicians 
having  assured  Charles  IX.  that  he  would  Uve  as  many  days 
as  he  should  turn  about  on  his  heels  in  an  hour,  standing  on 
one  leg,  his  majesty  every  morning  performed  that  solemn 
gyration  ;  the  principal  officers  of  the  court,  the  judges,  the 
chancellors,  and  generals,  likewise,  in  compliment,  standing 
on  one  leg  and  turning  round  ! 

It  has  been  reported  of  several  famous  for  their  astrologic 
skill,  that  they  have  suffered  a  voluntary  death  merely  to 
verify  their  own  predictions  ;  this  has  been  reported  of  Car- 
dan., and  Burton,  the  author  of  the  Anatomy  of  INIelancholy. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  the  shifts  to  which  astrologers  ai'e 
put  when  their  predictions  are  not  verified.  Great  winds 
were  predicted,  by  a  famous  adept,  about  the  year  1586.  No 
unusual  storms,  however,  happened.  Bodin,  to  save  the 
reputation  of  the  art,  applied  it  as  a,  figure  to  some  revolufions 
in  the  state,  and  of  which  there  were  instances  enough  at 
that  moment.  Among  their  lucky  and  unlucky  days,  they 
pretend  to  give  those  of  various  illustrious  persons  and  of 
fomilies.  One  is  very  striking. — Thursday  was  the  uiducky 
day  of  our  Henry  VIII.  He,  his  son  Edward  VI.,  Queen 
Mary,  and  Queen  Elizabeth,  all  died  on  a  Thursday  !  This 
fact  had,  no  doubt,  great  Aveight  in  this  controversy  of  the 
astrologers  with  their  adversaries. 

Lilly,  the  astrologer,  is  the  Sidrophel  of  Butler.  His 
Life,  written  by  himself,  contains  so  much  artless  narrative, 


ENGLISH  ASTROLOGERS.  371 

and  so  much  palpable  imposture,  that  it  is  difficult  to  know 
Avhen  he  is  speaking  what  he  really  believes  to  be  the  truth. 
In  a  sketch  of  the  state  of  astrology  in  his  day,  those  adepts, 
whose  characters  he  has  drawn,  were  the  lowest  miscreants 
of  the  town.  They  all  speak  of  each  other  as  rogues  and 
impostors.  Such  were  Booker,  Backhouse,  Gadbury ;  men 
who  gained  a  livelihood  by  practising  on  the  credulity  of 
even  men  of  learning  so  late  as  in  1650,  nor  were  they  much 
out  of  date  in  the  eighteenth  century.  In  Ashmole's  Life 
an  account  of  these  artful  impostors  may  be  found.  Most  of 
them  had  taken  the  air  in  the  pillory,  and  others  had  conjured 
themselves  up  to  the  gallows.  This  seems  a  true  statement 
of  facts.  But  Lilly  informs  us,  that  in  his  various  conferences 
with  angels,  their  voice  resembled  that  of  the  Irish  ! 

The  work  contains  anecdotes  of  the  times.  The  amours 
of  Lilly  with  his  mistress  ai'e  characteristic.  He  was  a  very 
artful  man,  and  admii'ably  managed  matters  which  required 
deception  and  invention. 

Astrology  greatly  flourished  in  the  time  of  the  civil  wars. 
The  royalists  and  the  rebels  had  their  astrologers  as  well  as 
their  soldiers  I  and  the  predictions  of  the  former  had  a  great 
influence  over  the  latter. 

On  this  subject,  it  may  gi'atify  curiosity  to  notice  three  or 
four  works,  which  bear  an  excessive  price.  The  price  can- 
not entirely  be  occasioned  by  their  rarity,  and  I  am  induced 
to  suppose  that  we  have  still  adepts,  whose  faith  must  be 
strong,  or  whose  skepticism  but  weai. 

The  Clialdean  sages  were  nearly  put  to  the  rout  by  a 
(piarto  park  of  artillery,  fired  on  them  by  Mr.  John  Chamber 
in  160L  Apollo  did  not  use  Marsyas  more  inhumanly  tlian 
his  scourging  pen  this  mystical  race,  and  his  personalities 
made  them  feel  more  sore.  However,  a  Norwich  knight,  the 
very  Quixote  of  astrology,  arrayed  in  the  enchanted  armour 
of  his  occult  authors,  encountered  this  pagan  in  a  most  stately 
carousal.  He  came  forth  with  "A  Defence  of  Judiciall  Astrol- 
ogye,  in  answer  to  a  treatise  lately  published  by  Mr.  John 


372  ENGLISH  ASTROLOGERS. 

Chamber.  By  Sir  Christopher  Heydon,  Knight ;  pnnted  at 
Cambridge,  1 603."  This  is  a  handsome  quarto  of  about  500 
pages.  Sir  Christopher  is  a  learned  writer,  and  a  knight 
worthy  to  defend  a  better  cause.  But  his  Dulcinea  had 
wrought  most  wonderfully  on  his' imagination.  This  defence 
of  this  fanciful  science,  if  science  it  may  be  called,  demon- 
strates notling,  wliile  it  defends  every  thing.  It  confutes, 
according  to  the  knight's  own  ideas  :  it  alleges  a  few  scattered 
facts  in  favour  of  astrological  predictions,  which  may  be 
picked  up  in  that  immensity  of  fabling  which  disgraces  history. 
He  strenuously  denies,  or  ridicules,  what  the  greatest  writers 
have  said  against  this  fanciful  art,  while  he  lays  great  stress 
on  some  passages  from  authors  of  no  authority.  The  most 
pleasant  part  is  at  the  close  where  he  defends  the  art  from 
the  objections  of  Mr.  Chamber  by  recrimination.  Chamber 
had  enriched  himself  by  medical  practice ;  and  when  he 
charges  the  astrologers  \\ith  merely  aiming  to  gain  a  few 
beggarly  pence.  Sir  Christopher  catches  fire,  and  shows  by 
his  quotations,  that  if  we  are  to  despise  an  art,  by  its  profes- 
sors attempting  to  subsist  on  it,  or  for  the  objections  which 
may  be  raised  against  its  vital  principles,  we  ought  by  this 
argument  most  heartily  to  despise  the  medical  science  and 
medical  men  !  He  gives  here  all  he  can  collect  against  phy- 
sic and  physicians  ;  and  from  the  confessions  of  Hippocrates 
and  Galen,  Avicenna  and  Agrippa,  medicine  appears  to  be  a 
vainer  science  than  even  astrology!  Sir  Christopher  is  a 
shrewd  and  ingenious  adversary  ;  but  when  he  says  he  means 
only  to  give  Mr.  Chamber  oil  for  his  vinegar,  he  has  totally 
mistaken  its  quality. 

The  defence  was  answered  by  Thomas  Vicars,  in  his 
"  Madnesse  of  Asti'ologers." 

But  the  great  work  is  by  Lilly ;  and  entirely  devoted  to 
the  adepts.  He  defends  nothing  ;  for  this  oracle  dehvers  his 
dictum,  and  details  every  event  as  matters  not  questionable. 
He  sits  on  the  tripod ;  and  every  page  is  embellished  by  a 
horoscope,  which  he  explains  with  the  utmost  facihty.     Tliis 


ENGLISH   ASTROLOGERS.  373 

voluminous  monument  of  the  folly  of  the  age  is  a  quarto 
valued  at  some  guineas  !  It  is  entitled,  "  Christian  Astrology^ 
modestly  treated  of  in  three  books,  by  William  Lilly,  student 
in  Astrology,  2d  edition,  1659."  The  most  curious  part  of 
this  work  is,  "  a  Catalogue  of  most  astrological  authors." 
There  is  also  a  portrait  of  this  arch  rogue,  and  astrologer : 
on  admirable  illustration  for  Lavater  ! 

Lilly's  opinions,  and  his  pretended  science,  were  such 
favourites  with  the  age,  that  the  learned  Gataker  wrote 
professedly  against  this  popular  delusion.  Lilly,  at  the  head 
of  his  star-expounding  friends,  not  only  formally  replied  to 
but  persecuted  Gataker  annually  in  his  predictions,  and  even 
struck  at  his  ghost,  when  beyond  the  grave.  Gataker  died 
in  July,  1654;  and  Lilly  having  written  in  his  almanac  of 
that  year  for .  the  month  of  August  this  barbarous  Latin 
verse : — 

Ffoc  in  tumbo  Jacet  presbyter  ei  nehulo  ! 

Here  in  this  tomb  lies  a  presbyter  and  a  knave ! 

lie  had  the  impudence  to  assert  that  he  had  predicted  Gat- 
aker's  death  !  But  the  truth  is,  it  was  an  epitaph  like  lodgings 
to  let ;  it  stood  empty  ready  for  the  first  passenger  to  inhabit. 
Had  any  other  of  that  party  of  any  eminence  died  in  that 
month,  it  would  have  been  as  appositely  applied  to  him.  But 
Lilly  was  an  exquisite  rogue,  and  never  at  fault.  Having 
prophesied  in  his  alpianac  for  1 650,  that  the  parliament  stood 
upon  a  tottering  foundation,  when  taken  up  by  a  messenger, 
during  the  night  he  was  confined,  he  contrived  to  cancel  th(j 
page,  printed  off  another,  and  showed  his  copies  before  the 
committee,  assuring  them  that  the  others  were  none  of  his 
own,  but  forged  by  his  enenues. 


374  ALCHYMY. 


ALCHTMY. 

Mus.  Thomas,  the  Corinna  of  Dryden,  in  her  Life,  ha3 
recorded  one  of  the  delusions  of  alchymy. 

An  infatuated  lover  of  this  delusive  art  met  with  one  who 
pretended  to  have  the  power  of  transmuting  lead  to  gold ; 
that  is,  in  their  language,  the  imperfect  metals  to  the  perfect 
one.  The  hermetic  philosopher  required  only  the  materials, 
and  time,  to  perform  his  golden  operations.  He  was  taken 
to  the  country  residence  of  his  patroness.  A  long  laboratory 
was  built,  and  that  his  labours  might  not  be  impeded  by  any 
disturbance,  no  one  was  permitted  to  enter  into  it.  His  door 
was  contrived  to  turn  on  a  pivot ;  so  that,  unseen  and  un- 
seeing, his  meals  were  conveyed  to  liim  without  distracting 
the  sublime  meditations  of  the  Sage. 

During  a  residence  of  two  years,  he  never  condescended 
to  speak  but  tAvo  or  three  times  in  a  year  to  his  infatuated 
patroness.  When  she  was  admitted  into  the  laboratory,  she 
saw,  with  pleasing  astonishment,  stills,  cauldrons,  long  flues, 
and  three  or  four  Vulcanian  fires  blazing  at  different  corners 
of  this  magical  mine  ;  nor  did  she  behold  with  less  reverence 
the  venerable  figure  of  the  dusty  philosopher.  Pale  and 
emaciated  \\nth  daily  operations  and  nightly  vigils,  he  re- 
vealed to  her,  in  unintelligible  jargon,  liis  progresses  ;  and 
having  sometimes  condescended  to  explain  the  mysteries  of 
the  arcana,  she  beheld,  or  seemed  to  behold,  streams  of  fluid 
and  heaps  of  solid  ore  scattered  around  the  laboratory. 
Sometimes  he  required  a  new  still,  and  sometimes  vast 
quantities  of  lead.  Already  tliis  unfortunate  lady  had  ex- 
pended the  half  of  her  fortune  in  supplying  the  demands  of 
the  philosoplier.  She  began  now  to  lower  her  imagination 
to  the  standard  of  reason.  Two  years  had  now  elapsed,  vast 
quantities  of  lead  had  gone  in,  and  nothing  but  lead  had  come 
out.  She  disclosed  her  sentiments  to  the  philosopher.  He 
candidly  confessed  he  was  himself  surprised  at  his  tardy  pro- 


ALCHYMY.  375 

cesses  ;  but  that  now  he  Avould  exert  himself  to  the  utmost 
and  that  fie  would  venture  to  perform  a  laborious  operation, 
which  hitherto  he  had  hoped  not  to  have  been  necessitated  to 
employ.  His  patroness  retired,  and  the  golden  visions  re- 
sunu'd  all  their  lustre. 

One  day,  as  they  sat  at  dinner,  a  terrible  shriek,  and  one 
crack  followed  by  another,  loud  as  the  report  of  cannon, 
assailed  theu*  ears.  They  hastened  to  the  laboratory ;  two 
of  the  greatest  stills  had  burst,  and  one  part  of  the  laboratory 
and  the  house  were  in  flames.  We  are  told  that,  after  an- 
other adventure  of  this  kind,  this  victim  to  alchymy,  after 
ruining  another  patron,  in  despair  swallowed  poison. 

Even  more  recently  we  have  a  history  of  an  alchymist  in 
the  life  of  Romney,  the  painter.  This  alchymist,  after  be- 
stowing much  time  and  money  on  prepai*ations  for  the  grand 
projection,  and  being  near  the  decisive  hour,  was  induced,  by 
the  too  earnest  request  of  his  wife,  to  quit  his  furnace  one 
evening,  to  attend  some  of  her  company  at  the  tea-table. 
Wliile  the  })rojector  was  attending  the  ladies,  his  furnace 
blew  up  !  In  consequence  of  this  event,  he  conceived  such 
an  antipathy  against  his  wife,  that  he  could  not  endure  the 
idea  of  living  with  her  again. 

Henry  VI.,  Evelyn  observes  in  his  Numismata,  endeav- 
oured to  recruit  his  empty  coffers  by  alchymy.  The  record 
of  this  smgular  proposition  contains  "  the  most  solemn  and 
serious  account  of  the  feasibility  and  virtues  of  the  philos- 
opher's stone,  encouraging  the  search  after  it,  and  dispensing 
with  all  statutes  and  prohibitions  to  the  contrary."  This 
}"ecord  was  probably  communicated  by  Mr.  Selden  to  his 
beloved  friend  Ben  Jonson,  when  the  poet  was  writing  his 
comedy  of  tlie  Alchymist. 

After  this  patent  was  j)ublished,  many  promised  to  answer 
the  king's  expectations  so  effectually,  that  the  next  year  he 
published  another  patent  ;  wherein  he  tells  his  subjects,  that 
the  happy  hour  was  drawing  nigh,  and  by  means  of  the 
8T0XE,  which  he  should  soon  be  master  of,  he  would  pay  all 


376  ALCHYMY. 

the  debts  of  the  nation  in  real  gold  and  silver.  The  })ersons 
picked  out  for  his  new  operators  Avere  as  remarkable  as  the 
patent  itseh',  being  a  most  "  miscellaneous  rabble  "  of  friars, 
grocers,  mercers,  and  fishmongers  ! 

This  patent  was  likewise  granted  authoritate  Parliamcnti  ; 
and  is  given  by  Prynne  in  his  Aurum  Reglnce,  p.  135. 

Alchymists  were  formerly  called  multipliers,  although  thoy 
never  could  multiply  ;  as  appears  from  a  statute  of  Henry  IV. 
repealed  in  the  preceding  record. 

"  None  from  henceforth  shall  use  to  mxdtiphj  gold  or  silver, 
or  use  the  craft  of  multiflication  ;  and  if  any  the  same  do, 
he  shall  incur  the  pain  of  felony."  Among  the  articles 
charged  on  the  Protector  Somerset  is  this  extraordinary  one  : 
— "  You  commanded  multiplication  and  alcumestry  to  be 
practised,  thereby  to  abate  the  king's  coin."  Stowe,  p.  601. 
What  are  we  to  understand  ?  Did  they  believe  that  alchymy 
would  be  so  productive  of  the  precious  metals  as  to  abate  the 
value  of  the  coin  ;  or  does  multiplication  refer  to  an  arbitrary 
I'ise  in  the  currency  by  order  of  the  government  ? 

Every  philosophical  mind  must  be  convmced  that  alchymy 
is  not  an  art,  which  some  have  fancifully  traced  to  the  re- 
motest times  ;  it  may  be  rather  regarded,  when  opposed  to 
such  a  distance  of  time,  as  a  modem  imposture.  Cfesar 
commanded  the  treatises  of  alchymy  to  be  burnt  throughout 
the  Roman  dominions :  Caesar,  who  is  not  less  to  be  admired 
as  a  philosopher  than  as  a  monarch. 

Mr.  Gibbon  has  this  succinct  passage  relative  to  alchymy  • 
"  The  ancient  books  of  alchymy,  so  liberally  ascribed  to 
Pythagoras,  to  Solomon,  or  to  Hermes,  were  the  pious  frauds 
of  more  recent  adepts.  The  Greeks  were  inattentive  either 
to  the  use  or  the  abuse  of  chemistry.  In  that  immense  regis- 
ter where  Pliny  has  deposited  the  discoveries,  the  arts,  and 
the  errors  of  mankind,  there  is  not  the  least  mention  of  the 
transmutations  of  metals  ;  and  the  persecution  of  Diocletian  is 
the  first  authentic  event  in  the  history  of  alchymy.  The 
conquest  of  Egypt  by  the  Arabs  diffused  that  vain  science 


ALCHYMY.  377 

over  the  globe.  Congenial  to  the  avarice  of  the  human 
heart,  it  was  studied  in  China,  as  in  Europe,  with  equal 
eagerness  and  equal  success.  The  darkness  of  the  middla 
ages  ensured  a  favourable  reception  to  every  tale  of  wonder ; 
and  the  revival  of  learning  gave  new  vigour  to  hope,  and 
suggested  more  specious  arts  to  deception.  Philosophy,  with 
the  aid  of  experience,  has  at  length  banished  the  study  of 
alchymy ;  and  the  present  age,  however  desii'ous  of  riches, 
is  content  to  seek  them  by  the  humbler  means  of  commerce 
and  industry." 

Ehas  Ashmole  writes  in  his  diaiy — "  May  13,  1G53.  My 
father  Backhouse  (an  astrologer  who  had  adopted  him  for  his 
son,  a  common  practice  with  these  men)  lying  sick  in  Fleet- 
street,  over  against  St.  Dunstan's  church,  and  not  knoAving 
whether  he  should  live  or  die,  about  eleven  of  the  clock,  told 
me  in  syllables  the  true  matter  of  the  philosopher's  stone, 
which  he  bequeathed  to  me  as  a  legacy."  By  this  we  learn 
that  a  miserable  wretch  knew  the  art  of  maJdng  gold,  yet 
always  lived  a  beggar ;  and  that  Ashmole  really  imagined  he 
was  in  possession  of  the  syllables  of  a  secret !  He  has,  how- 
ever, built  a  curious  monument  of  the  learned  follies  of  the 
last  age,  in  his  "  Theatrum  Chemicum  Britannicum."  Though 
Ashmole  is  rather  the  historian  of  this  vain  science  than  an 
adept,  it  may  amuse  literary  leisure  to  turn  over  this  quarto 
volume,  in  which  he  has  collected  the  works  of  several  Eng 
lish  alchymists,  subjoining  his  commentary.  It  affords  a 
curious  specimen  of  Rosicrucian  mysteries ;  and  Ashmole 
relates  several  miraculous  stories.  Of  the  philosopher's 
stojie,  he  says  he  knows  enough  to  hold  his  tongue,  but  not 
enough  to  speak.  This  stone  has  not  only  the  power  of  ti-ans- 
muting  any  imperfect  earthy  matter  into  its  utmost  degree 
of  perfection,  and  can  convert  the  basest  metals  into  gold, 
flints  into  stone,  &c. ;  but  it  has  still  more  occult  virtues, 
when  the  arcana  have  been  entered  into  by  the  choice  fathers 
of  hermetic  mysteries.  The  vegetable  stone  has  power  ovc^r 
the  natures  of  man,  beast,  fowls,  fishes,  and  all  kinds  of  trees 


378  ALCHYMY. 

and  plants,  to  make  them  flourish  and  bear  fruit  at  any  time. 
The  magical  stone  discovers  any  person  wherever  he  is  con- 
cealed ;  while  the  angelical  stone  gives  the  apparitions  of 
angels,  and  a  power  of  conversing  with  them.  These  great 
mysteries  are  supported  by  occasional  facts,  and  illustrated 
by  prints  of  the  most  divine  and  incomprehensible  designs, 
which  we  would  hope  were  intelligible  to  the  initiated.  It 
may  be  worth  showing,  however,  how  Uable  even  the  latter 
were  to  blunder  on  these  mysterious  hieroglyphics.  Ashmole, 
in  one  of  his  chemical  woi'ks,  prefixed  a  fi'ontispiece,  which, 
ui  several  compartments,  exhibited  Phoebus  on  a  lion,  and 
opposite  to  him  a  lady,  who  represented  Diana,  with  the 
moon  in  one  hand  and  an  aiTow  in  the  other,  sitting  on  a  crab  ; 
Mercury  on  a  tripod,  with  the  scheme  of  the  heavens  in  one 
hand,  and  his  caduceus  in  the  other.  These  were  intended 
to  express  the  materials  of  the  stone,  and  the  season  for  the 
process.  Upon  the  altar  is  the  bust  of  a  man,  liis  head 
covered  by  an  astrological  scheme  dropped  from  the  clouds  ; 
and  on  the  altar  are  these  words,  "  Mercuriophilus  Anglicus," 
i.  e.  the  Enghsh  lover  of  hermetic  philosophy.  There  is  a 
tree,  and  a  little  creature  gnawing  the  root,  a  pillar  adorned 
with  musical  and  mathematical  instruments,  and  another  with 
military  ensigns.  Tliis  strange  composition  created  great  in- 
quiry among  the  chemical  sages.  Deep  mysteries  were 
conjectured  to  be  veiled  by  it.  Verses  w^ere  written  in  the 
highest  strain  of  the  Rosicrucian  language.  Ashmole  confessed 
he  meant  nothing  more  than  a  kind  of  pun  on  his  own  name, 
for  the  tree  was  the  ash,  and  the  creature  was  a  mole.  One 
pillar  tells  his  love  of  music  and  freemasonary,  and  the  other 
his  military  preferment  and  astrological  studies  !  He  after- 
wards regretted  that  no  one  added  a  second  volume  to  his 
work,  from  which  he  himself  had  been  hindered,  for  the 
honour  of  the  family  of  Hermes,  and  "  to  show  the  world 
what  excellent  men  we  had  once  of  our  nation,  famous  for 
tliis  kind  of  philosophy,  and  masters  of  so  transcendent  a 
secret." 


TITLES   OF   BOOKS.  379 

Modern  chemistry  is  not  without  a  hope,  not  to  say  a  cer- 
tainfy^  of  verifying  the  golden  visions  of  the  alchymists.  Dr. 
Girtanner,  of  Gottingen,  not  long  ago  adventured  the  follow- 
ing prophecy  :  "  In  the  nineteenth  century  the  transmutation 
of  metals  will  be  generally  known  and  practised.  Every 
chemist  and  every  artist  will  make  gold ;  kitchen  utensils 
will  be  of  silver,  and  even  gold,  which  will  contribute  more 
than  any  thing  else  to  prolong  life,  poisoned  at  present  by  the 
oxides  of  copper,  lead,  and  iron,  which  we  daily  swallow  with 
our  food."  Phil.  INIag.  vol.  vi.  p.  383.  Tliis  sublime  chemist, 
though  he  does  not  venture  to  predict  that  universal  elixir, 
which  is  to  prolong  life  at  pleasure,  yet  approximates  to  it. 
A  chemical  friend  uTites  to  me,  that  "  The  metals  seem  to  be 
composite  bodies,  which  nature  is  perpetually  preparing ;  and 
it  may  be  reserved  for  the  future  researches  of  science  to 
trace,  and  perhaps  to  imitate,  some  of  these  curious  opera- 
tions." Sir  Humphry  Davy  told  me  that  he  did  not  consider 
this  undiscovered  art  an  impossible  thing,  but  wliich,  should 
it  ever  be  discovered,  would  certainly  be  useless. 


TITLES   OF  BOOKS. 

Were  it  inquired  of  an  ingenious  writer  what  page  of  his 
work  had  occasioned  him  most  perplexity,  he  Avould  often 
point  to  the  title-page.  The  curiosity  which  we  there  would 
excite,  is,  however,  most  fastidious  to  gratify. 

Among  those  who  appear  to  have  felt  tliis  irksome  situa 
tion,  are  most  of  our  periodical  writers.  The  "  Tatler  "  and 
the  "  Spectator,"  enjoying  priority  of  conception,  have  adopted 
titles  with  characteristic  felicity ;  but  perhaps  the  invention 
of  the  authors  begins  to  fail  in  the  "  Reader,"  the  "  Lover," 
and  the  "  Theatre ! "  Succeeding  writers  were  as  unfortu- 
nate in  their  titles,  as  their  works ;  such  are  the  "  Universal 
Spectator,"  and  the  "  Lay  Monastery."     Tlie  copious  mind 


380  TITLES    OF   BOOKS. 

of  Johnson  could  not  discover  an  appropriate  title,  and  indeed 
in  the  first  "  Idler,"  acknowledged  his  despair.  The  "  Ram- 
bler "  was  so  little  understood,  at  the  time  of  its  appearance, 
that  a  French  journalist  has  translated  it  as  "Ze  Chevalier 
£)'rant ;  "  and  when  it  was  corrected  to  U Errant,  a  foreigner 
drank  Johnson's  health  one  day,  by  innocently  addressing 
him  by  the  appellation  of  Mr.  "  Vagabond  !  "  The  "Adven- 
turer "  cannot  be  considered  as  a  fortunate  title  ;  it  is  not 
appropriate  to  those  pleasing  miscellanies,  for  any  writer  is 
an  adventurer.  The  "  Loungei',"  the  "  Mirror,"  and  even  the 
"  Connoisseur,"  if  examined  accurately,  present  nothing  in 
the  titles  descriptive  of  the  works.  As  for  the  "  World,"  it 
could  only  have  been  given  by  the  fashionable  egotism  of  its 
authors,  who  considered  the  world  as  merely  a  circuit  round 
St.  James's  Street.  When  the  celebrated  father  of  all  re- 
views, Le  Journal  des  Sgavans,  was  first  published,  the  very 
title  repulsed  the  public.  The  author  was  obliged  in  his  suc- 
ceeding volumes  to  soften  it  do^vn,  by  explaining  its  general 
tendency.  He  there  assures  the  curious,  that  not  only  men 
of  learning  and  taste,  but  the  humblest  mechanic,  may  find 
a  profitable  amusement.  An  English  novel,  pubUshed  with 
the  title  of  "  The  Champion  of  Virtue,"  could  find  no  readers  ; 
but  afterwards  passed  tlu-ough  several  editions  under  the 
happier  invitation  of  "  The  Old  Enghsh  Baron."  "  The 
Concubine,"  a  poem  by  Mickle,  could  never  find  purchasers, 
till  it  assumed  the  more  delicate  title  of  "  Sir  Martyn." 

As  a  subject  of  literary  curiosity,  some  amusement  may 
be  gathered  from  a  glance  at  what  has  been  doing  in  the 
world,  concerning  this  important  portion  of  every  book. 

The  Jewish  and  many  oriental  authors  were  fond  of  alle- 
gorical titles,  which  always  indicate  the  most  puerile  age  of 
taste.  The  titles  were  usually  adapted  to  their  obscure 
works.  It  might  exercise  an  able  enigmatist  to  explain  their 
allusions  ;  for  we  must  understand  by  "  The  Heart  of  Aaron," 
that  it  is  a  commentary  on  several  of  the  prophets.  "  The 
Bones  of  Joseph  "  is  an  introduction  to  the  Talmud.     "  The 


TITLES    OF   BOOKS.  381 

Garden  of  Xuts,"  and  "  The  Golden  Apple?,"  are  theologi(!al 
questions  ;  and  "  The  Pomegranate  with  its  Flower,"  is  a 
treatise  of  ceremonies,  not  any  more  practised.  Jortin  gives 
a  title,  which  he  says  of  all  the  fantastical  titles  he  can  recol- 
lect is  one  of  the  prettiest.  A  rabbin  ])ublished  a  catalogue 
of  rabbinical  writers,  and  called  it  Labia  Donnientium,  from 
Cantic.  vii.  9.  "  Like  the  best  wine  of  my  beloved  that 
gocth  down  SAveetly,  causing  the  lips  of  those  that  are  asleep 
to  speak."  It  hath  a  double  meaning,  of  which  he  was  not 
aware,  for  most  of  his  rabbinical  brethren  talk  very  much 
like  men  in  their  sleep. 

Almost  all  their  works  bear  such  titles  as  bread — gold — • 
silver — roses — eyes,  &c. ;  in  a  word,  any  thing  that  signifies 
nothing. 

Affected  title-pages  were  not  peculiar  to  the  orientals  :  the 
Greeks  and  the  Romans  have  shown  a  finer  taste.  They 
had  their  Cornucopias,  or  horns  of  abundance — Limones,  or 
meadows — Pinakidions,  or  tablets — Pancarpes,  or  all  sorts 
of  fruits  ;  titles  not  unhappily  adapted  for  the  miscellanists. 
The  nine  books  of  Herodotus,  and  the  nine  epistles  of 
jEschines,  were  respectively  honoured  by  the  name  of  a 
Muse ;  and  three  orations  of  the  latter,  by  those  of  the 
Graces. 

The  modem  fanatics  have  had  a  most  barbarous  taste  for 
titles.  We  could  produce  numbers  from  abroad,  and  at 
home.  Some  works  have  been  called,  "  Matches  lighted  at 
the  Divine  Fire," — and  one  "  The  Gun  of  Penitence  : "  a 
collection  of  passages  from  the  fathers  is  called  "  The  Shop 
of  the  Spiritual  Apothecary : "  we  have  "  The  Bank  of 
Faith,"  and  "  The  Sixpennyworth  of  Divine  Spirit:  "  one  of 
these  works  bears  the  following  elaborate  title  ;  "  Some  fine 
Biscuits  baked  ui  the  Oven  of  Charity,  cai'efuUy  conserved 
for  the  Chickens  of  the  Church,  the  Span'ows  of  the  Spirit, 
and  the  sweet  Swallows  of  Salvation."  Sometimes  their 
quaintness  has  some  humour.  Sir  Humphrey  Lind,  a  zeal- 
ous puritan,  published  a  work  whicli  a  Jesuit  answered  by 


382  TITLES   OF   BOOKS. 

another,  entitled  "A  pair  of  spectacles  for  Sir  Humphrey 
Lind."  The  doujrhty  knight  retorted,  by  "A  Case  for  Sir 
Plumphrey  Lind's  Spectacles." 

Some  of  these  obscure  titles  have  an  entertaining  ab- 
surdity ;  as  "  The  Three  Daughters  of  Job,"  which  is  a  trea- 
tise on  the  three  virtues  of  patience,  fortitude,  and  pain. 
"  The  Innocent  Love,  or  the  Holy  Knight,"  is  a  description 
of  the  ardours  of  a  saint  for  the  Virgin.  "  The  Sound  of  the 
Trumpet,"  is  a  work  on  the  day  of  judgment ;  and  "A  Fan 
to  drive  away  Flies,"  is  a  theological  treatise  on  purgatory. 

We  must  not  write  to  the  utter  neglect  of  our  title ;  and  a 
fair  author  should  have  the  literary  piety  of  ever  having  "  the 
fear  of  his  title-page  before  his  eyes."  The  following  are 
improper  titles.  Don  Matthews,  chief  huntsman  to  Philip  IV. 
of  Spain,  entitled  his  book  "  The  Origin  and  Dignity  of  the 
Royal  House,"  but  the  entire  work  relates  only  to  hunting. 
De  Chantereine  composed  several  moral  essays,  which  being 
at  a  loss  how  to  entitle,  he  called  "  The  Education  of  a 
Prince."  He  would  persuade  the  reader  in  his  preface,  that 
though  they  were  not  composed  Avith  a  view  to  this  subject, 
they  should  not,  however,  be  censured  for  the  title,  as  they 
partly  related  to  the  education  of  a  prince.  The  world  was 
too  sagacious  to  be  duped  ;  and  the  author  in  his  second 
edition  acknowledges  the  absurdity,  drops  "  the  magnificent 
title,"  and  calls  his  work  "  Moral  Essays."  Montaigne's  im- 
mortal history  of  his  own  mind,  for  such  are  his  "  Essays," 
has  assumed  perhaps  too  modest  a  title,  and  not  sufficiently 
discriminative.  Sorlin  equivocally  entitled  a  collection  of 
essays,  "  The  Walks  of  Richelieu,"  because  they  were  com- 
posed at  that  place ;  "  The  Attic  Nights  "  of  Aulus  Gellius 
were  so  called,  because  they  were  written  in  Attica.  Mr. 
Tooke,  in  his  grammatical  "  Diversions  of  Purley,"  must 
have  deceived  many. 

A  rhodomontade  title-page  was  once  a  gi-eat  favourite. 
There  was  a  time  when  the  republic  of  letters  was  over-built 
with  "  Palaces  of  Pleasure,"  "  Palaces  of  Honour,"  and  "  Pal- 


TITLES   OF   BOOKS.  333 

aces  of  Eloquence ; "  with  "  Temples  of  Memory,"  and 
"  Theatres  of  Human  Life,"  and  "Amphitheatres  of  Provi- 
dence ; "  "  Pharoses,  Gardens,  Pictures,  Treasures."  The 
epistles  of  Guevara  dazzled  the  public  eye  with  their  splen- 
did title,  for  they  were  called  "  Golden  Epistles  ; "  and  the 
"  Golden  Legend  "  of  Voragine  had  been  more  appropriately 
entitled  leaden. 

They  were  once  so  fond  of  novelty,  that  eveiy  book  recom- 
mended itself  by  such  titles  as  "A  new  Method ;  new  Ele- 
ments of  Geometry ;  the  new  Letter  "Writer,  and  the  new 
Art  of  Cookery." 

To  excite  the  curiosity  of  the  p'ous,  some  writers  employed 
artifices  of  a  very  ludicrous  nature.  Some  made  their  titles 
rlnnning  echoes  ;  as  this  one  of  a  father,  who  has  given  his 
works  under  the  title  of  Scales  Alee  animi  ;  and  Jesus  esus 
novus  Orhis.  Some  have  distributed  them  according  to  the 
measure  of  time,  as  one  Father  Nadasi,  the  greater  part  of 
whose  works  are  years,  months,  loeeks,  days,  and  hours.  Some 
have  borrowed  their  titles  from  the  parts  of  the  body ;  and 
others  have  used  quaint  expressions,  such  as — Think  before 
you  leap —  We  must  all  die —  Compel  them  to  enter.  Some 
of  our  pious  authors  appear  not  to  have  been  aware  that  they 
were  burlesquing  religion.  One  Massieu  having  written  a 
moral  explanation  of  the  solemn  anthems  sung  in  Advent, 
which  begin  with  the  letter  o,  published  this  work  under  the 
punning  title  of  La  douce  Moelle,  et  la  Sauce  friunde  des  os 
Savouretix  de  VAvent. 

The  Marquis  of  Carraccioli  assumed  the  ambiguous  title 
of  La  Jouissance  de  soi-meme.  Seduced  by  the  epicurean 
title  of  self-enjoyment,  the  sale  of  the  work  was  continual 
with  the  libertines,  who,  however,  found  nothing  but  veiy 
tedious  essays  on  religion  and  morality.  In  the  sixth  edition 
the  marquis  greatly  exults  in  his  successful  contrivance  ;  by 
which  means  he  had  punished  the  vicious  curiosity  of  certain 
persons,  and  perhaps  had  persuaded  some,  whom  otherwise 
his  book  misrht  never  have  reached. 


384  TITLES   OF   BOOKS. 

If  a  title  be  obscure,  it  raises  a  prejudice  against  the 
author ;  we  are  apt  to  suppose  that  an  ambiguous  title  is  the 
effect  of  an  intricate  or  confused  mind.  Baillet  censures  the 
Ocean  Macromicrocosmic  of  one  Sachs.  To  understand  this 
title,  a  grammarian  would  send  an  inquirer  to  a  geographer, 
and  he  to  a  natural  philosopher ;  neither  would  probably 
think  of  recurring  to  a  physician,  to  inform  one  that  this  am- 
biguous title  signifies  the  connection  which  exists  between  the 
motion  of  the  waters  with  that  of  the  blood.  He  censures 
Leo  Allatius  for  a  title  which  appears  to  me  not  inelegantly 
conceived.  This  writer  has  entitled  one  of  his  books  the 
Urban  Bees  ;  it  is  an  account  of  those  illustrious  writers  who 
flourished  during  the  pontificate  of  one  of  the  Barberinis. 
Tlie  allusion  refers  to  the  bees  which  were  the  arms  of  tliis 
family,  and  Ui'ban  VIII.  is  the  Pope  designed. 

The  false  idea  which  a  title  conveys  is  alike  prejudicial  to 
the  author  and  the  reader.  Titles  are  generally  too  prodigal 
of  their  promises,  and  their  authors  are  contemned  ;  but  the 
works  of  modest  authors,  though  they  present  more  than  they 
promise,  may  fail  of  attracting  notice  by  their  extreme  sim- 
plicity. In  either  case,  a  collector  of  books  is  prejudiced  ;  he 
is  induced  to  collect  what  merits  no  attention,  or  he  passes 
over  those  valuable  works  whose  titles  may  not  happen  to  be 
interesting.  It  is  related  of  Pinelli,  the  celebrated  collector 
of  books,  that  the  booksellers  permitted  him  to  remain  hours, 
and  sometimes  days,  in  their  shops  to  examine  books  before 
he  purchased.  He  was  desirous  of  not  injuring  his  precious 
(Collection  by  useless  acquisitions  ;  but  he  confessed  that  he 
sometimes  could  not  help  being  dazzled  by  magnificent  titles, 
nor  being  mistaken  by  the  simplicity  of  others,  which  had 
been  chosen  by  the  modesty  of  their  authors.  After  all, 
many  authors  are  really  neither  so  vain,  nor  so  honest,  as 
they  appear ;  for  magnificent,  or  simple  titles,  have  often 
been  given  from  the  difficulty  of  forming  any  others. 

It  is  too  often  with  the  Titles  of  Books,  as  with  those 
painted   representations   exhibited   by   the   keepers  of  wild 


LITERARY   FOLLIES.  385 

beasts;  where,  in  general,  the  picture  itself  is  made  more 
striking  and  inviting  to  the  eye,  than  the  inclosed  animal  ia 
always  found  to  be. 


LITERARY  FOLLIES. 

The  Greeks  composed  lipogrammatic  works ;  works  in 
wliich  one  letter  of  the  alphabet  is  omitted.  A  lipogrmnma- 
tist  is  a  letter -dropper.  In  this  manner  Tryphiodorus  wrote 
his  Odyssey  ;  he  had  not  a  in  his  first  book,  nor  ^  in  his  second ; 
and  so  on  with  the  subsequent  letters  one  after  another.  This 
Odyssey  was  an  imitation  of  the  lipogrammatic  Eiad  of 
Nestor.  Among  other  works  of  this  kind,  AthenKus  men- 
tions an  ode  by  Pindar,  in  which  he  had  purposely  omitted 
the  letter  S  ;  so  that  this  inept  ingenuity  appears  to  have 
been  one  of  those  literary  fashions  which  are  sometimes  en- 
couraged even  by  those  who  should  fii'st  oppose  such  pro- 
gresses into  the  realms  of  nonsense. 

There  is  in  Latin  a  little  prose  work  of  Fulgentius,  which 
the  author  divides  into  twenty-three  chapters,  according  to 
the  order  of  the  twenty-three  letters  of  the  Latin  alphabet. 
From  A  to  O  ai-e  still  remaining.  The  first  chapter  is 
without  A  ;  the  second  without  B ;  the  third  without  C  ;  and 
so  with  the  rest.  There  are  five  novels  in  prose  of  Lopes 
de  Vega  ;  the  first  without  A,  the  second  without  E,  the 
third  without  I,  &c.     Who  will  attempt  to  verity  them  ? 

The  Orientalists  are  not  without  this  literary  folly.  A 
Persian  poet  read  to  the  celebrated  Jami  a  gazel  of  his  own 
composition,  which  Jami  did  not  like :  but  the  writer  re{)lied, 
it  was  notwithstanding  a  very  curious  sonnet,  for  the  letter 
Aliff  was  not  to  be  found  in  any  one  of  the  words  !  Jami 
sarcastically  repHed,  "  You  can  do  a  better  thing  yet ;  take 
away  all  the  letters  from  every  word  you  have  written." 

To  these  works  may  be  added  the  Ecloga  de  Culvis,  by 
Hugbald  the  monk.     All  the  words  of  this  silly  work  begin 

VOL.  I.  25 


386  LITERARY  FOLLIES. 

with  a  C.  It  is  printed  in  Domavius.  Pugna  Porcoriim , 
all  the  words  beginning  with  a  P,  in  the  Nugae  Venales. 
Canuin  cum  cattis  certamen  ;  the  words  beginning  with  a 
C  :  a  performance  of  the  same  kind  in  the  same  work. 
Gregorio  Leti  presented  a  discourse  to  the  Academy  of  the 
Humorists  at  Rome,  throughout  which  he  had  purposely 
omitted  the  letter  R,  and  he  entitled  it  the  exiled  R.  A 
friend  having  requested  a  copy,  as  a  literary  curiosity,  for  so 
he  considered  this  idle  performance,  Leti,  to  show  that  this 
affair  was  not  so  dilHcult,  replied  by  a  copious  answer  of 
seven  pages,  in  which  he  had  observed  the  same  severe 
ostracism  against  the  letter  R!  Lord  North,  in  the  court 
of  James  L,  has  written  a  set  of  Sonnets,  each  of  which 
begins  with  a  successive  letter  of  the  alphabet.  The  Earl 
of  Rivers,  in  the  reign  of  Eldward  IV.,  translated  the  Moral 
Proverbs  of  Clu-istiana  of  Pisa,  a  poem  of  about  two  hundred 
lines,  the  greatest  part  of  which  he  contrived  to  conclude 
with  the  letter  E ;  an  instance  of  his  lordship's  hard  appli- 
cation, and  the  bad  taste  of  an  age  which,  Lord  Orford 
observes,  had  witticisms  and  whims  to  struggle  with,  as  well 
as  ignorance. 

It  has  been  well  observed  of  these  minute  triflers,  that 
extreme  exactness  is  the  sublime  of  fools,  whose  labours  may 
be  well  called,  in  the  language  of  Dryden, 

"  Pangs  without  birth,  and  fruitless  industry." 
And  Martial  says, 

Turpe  est  difficiles  habere  nu.^as, 
Et  stultus  labor  est  ineptiarum. 

Which  we  may  translate, 

'Tis  a  folly  to  sweat  o'er  a  difficult  trifle, 
And  for  silly  devices  invention  to  rifle. 

I  shall  not  dwell  on  the  wits  who  composed  verses  in  the 
forms  of  hearts,  wings,  altars,  and  true-love  knots  ;  or  as  Ben 
•Jonson  describes  their  grotesque  shapes, 

"  A  Duir  of  scissors  and  a  comb  in  verse." 


LITERARY   FOLLIES.  387 

Tom  Nash,  who  loved  to  push  the  hidicrous  to  its  extreme, 
in  his  amusing  invective  against  the  classical  Gabriel  Harvey, 
tells  us  that  "  he  had  writ  verses  in  all  kinds ;  in  tbrm  of  a 
pair  of  gloves,  a  pair  of  spectacles,  and  a  pair  of  ])Ot-hooks," 
&c.  They  are  not  less  absurd,  who  expose  to  public  ridicule 
the  name  of  their  mistress  by  employing  it  to  tbrm  their 
acrostics.  I  have  seen  some  of  the  latter  where,  both  sides 
and  crossways,  the  name  of  the  mistress  or  the  patron  has 
been  sent  down  to  posterity  with  eternal  torture.  When  one 
name  is  made  out  four  times  in  the  same  acrostic,  the  great 
ditficulty  must  have  been  to  have  found  words  by  which  the 
letters  forming  the  name  should  be  forced  to  stand  in  their 
particular  places.  It  might  be  incredible  that  so  great  a 
genius  as  Boccaccio  could  have  lent  himself  to  these  literary 
fashions  ;  yet  one  of  the  most  gigantic  of  acrostics  may  be 
seen  in  his  works  ;  it  is  a  poem  of  tifty  cantos  !  Guinguene 
has  preserved  a  specimen  in  his  Literary  History  of  Italy, 
vol.  iii.  p.  54.  Puttenham,  in  "The  Art  of  Poesie,"  p.  75, 
gives  several  odd  specimens  of  poems  in  the  forms  of  loz- 
enges, rhomboids,  pillars,  &c.  Puttenham  has  contrived  to 
form  a  defence  for  describing  and  making  such  trifling  de- 
vices. He  has  done  more :  he  has  erected  two  pillars 
himself  to  the  honour  of  Queen  EHzabeth  \  every  pillar 
consists  of  a  base  of  eight  syllables,  the  shaft  or  middle 
of  four,  and  the  capital  is  equal  with  the  base.  The  only 
difference  between  the  two  pillars  consists  in  this  ;  in  the  one 
"  ye  must  read  upwards,"  and  in  the  other  the  reverse. 
These  pillars,  notwithstanding  this  fortunate  device  and 
variation,  may  be  fixed  as  two  columns  in  the  porch  of 
the  vast  temple  of  literary  folly. 

It  was  at  this  jjcriod,  when  ivords  or  verse  wei'e  tortured 
into  such  fantastic  forms,  that  the  trees  in  gardens  were 
twisted  and  sheared  into  obelisks  and  giants,  peacocks,  or 
flower-pots.  In  a  copy  of  verses,  "  To  a  hair  of  my  mis- 
tress's eye-lash,"  the  merit,  next  to  the  choice  of  the  suliject, 
must  have  been  the  arrangement,  or  the  disarrangement,  of 


388  LITERARY   FOLLIES. 

tlje  whole  poem  into  the  form  of  a  heart.  With  a  pair  of 
wings  many  a  sonnet  fluttered,  and  a  sacred  hymn  was  ex- 
pressed by  the  mystical  triangle.  Acrostics  are  formed  from 
the  initial  letters  of  every  verse ;  but  a  different  conceit 
regulated  chronogra7ns,  which  were  used  to  describe  dates — ■ 
the  numeral  letters,  in  whatever  part  of  the  word  they  stood, 
were  distinguished  from  other  letters  by  being  written  iu 
ca))itals.  In  tlie  following  chi'onogram  from  Horace, 
—feriam  sidera  vertice, 

by  a  strange  elevation  of  capitals  the  chronogrammatist 
compels  even  Horace  to  give  the  year  of  our  Lord  thus, 
— feriaM  siDera  Vertlce.     IMDVI. 

The  Acrostic  and  the  Chronogram  are  both  ingeniously 
described  in  the  mock  epic  of  the  Scribleriad.  The  initial 
letters  of  the  acrostics  are  thus  alluded  to  in  the  literary 
wars : — 

Firm  and  compact,  in  three  fair  columns  wove, 
O'er  the  smooth  plain,  the  bold  acrostics  move; 
Hlyh  o'er  the  rest,  the  towekixg  leaders  rise 
With  liinbs  (/iyantic,  and  superior  size. 

But  the  looser  character  of  the  chronograms,  and  the  dis- 
order in  which  they  are  found,  are  ingeniously  sung  thus : — 

Not  thus  the  looser  chronograms  prepare 
Careless  their  troops,  undisciplined  to  war; 
With  rank  irregular,  confused  they  stand. 
The  CHiEETAiNs  MINGLING  with  the  vulgar  band. 

He  afterwards  adds  others  of  the  illegitimate  race  of  wit : — 

To  join  these  squadrons,  o'er  the  champaign  came 
A  numerous  race  of  no  ignoble  name; 
Riddle  and  Rebus,  Riddle's  dearest  son, 
AnA  false  Conundrum  and  insidious  Pun. 
Fustian,  who  scarcely  deigns  to  tread  the  gi'ound, 
And  Rondeau,  wheeling  in  repeated  round. 
On  their  fair  standards,  by  the  wind  display'd, 
Eygs,  altars,  wings,  pipes,  axes,  were  pourtray'd. 

I  find  the  origin  of  Bouts-rimes,  or  "  Rhyming  Ends,"  in 
Goujet's   Bib.  Fr.  xvi.  p.   181.     One  Dulot,  a  foohsh  poet, 


LITERARY  FOLLIES.  389 

when  sonnets  were  in  demand,  had  a  singuLar  custom  of  pre- 
paring the  rhymes  of  tliese  poems  to  be  filled  up  at  his 
leisure.  Having  been  robbed  of  his  papers,  he  was  regi-et- 
ting  most  the  loss  of  three  hundred  sonnets  :  his  friends  were 
(tstoiiislied  that  he  had  written  so  many  which  they  had  never 
heard.  "  They  were  blank  sonnets"  he  replied  ;  and  ex- 
plained the  mystery  by  describing  his  Bouts-rimes.  The 
idea  appeared  ridiculously  amusing  ;  and  it  soon  became 
fashionable  to  collect  the  most  diificult  rhymes,  and  fill  up 
the  lines. 

The  Charade  is  of  recent  birth,  and  I  cannot  discover  the 
origin  of  this  species  of  logogriphes.  It  was  not  known  in 
France  so  late  as  in  1771  ;  in  the  great  Dictionnaire  de 
Trevoux,  the  term  appears  only  as  the  name  of  an  Indian 
sect  of  a  military  character.  Its  mystical  conceits  have  occa- 
sionally displayed  singular  felicity. 

Anagrams  were  another  whimsical  invention ;  with  the 
letters  of  any  name  they  contrived  to  make  out  some  entire 
word  descriptive  of  the  character  of  the  person  who  bore  the 
name.  These  anagrams,  therefore,  were  either  satirical  or 
complimentarj'.  "When  in  fashion,  lovers  made  use  of  them 
continually :  I  have  read  of  one,  whose  mistress's  name  was 
Magdalen,  for  whom  he  composed,  not  only  an  epic  under 
that  name,  but  as  a  proof  of  his  passion,  one  day  he  sent  her 
three  dozen  of  anagrams  all  on  her  lovely  name.  Scioppius 
imagined  himself  fortunate  that  his  adversary  Scnliger  was 
perfectly  Sacrilege  in  all  the  oblique  cases  of  the  Latin  lan- 
guage ;  on  this  principle  Sir  John  Wiat  was  made  out,  to  his 
own  satisfaction — a  wit.  They  were  not  always  correct 
when  a  great  compliment  was  required  ;  the  poet  John  Cleve- 
land  was  strained  hard  to  make  Heliconian  dew.  This  lite- 
rar)'  trifle  has,  however,  in  our  owti  times,  produced  several, 
equally  ingenious  and  caustic. 

Verses  of  grotesque  shapes  have  sometimes  been  contrived 
to  convey  ingenious  thoughts.  Pannard,  a  modern  French  poet, 
has   tortured  his  agreeable  vein  of  poetry  into  sufh  forms. 


390  LITERARY   FOLLIES. 

He  has  made  some  of  his  Bacchanalian  songs  to  take  the 
figures  of  bottles  and  otliers  of  glasses.  These  objects  are 
perfectly  drawn  by  the  various  measures  of  the  verses  which 
form  the  songs.  He  has  also  introduced  an  echo  in  his  verses 
which  he  contrives  so  as  not  to  injure  their  sense.  This  was 
practised  by  the  old  French  bards  in  the  age  of.  Maj'ot,  and 
this  poetical  whim  is  ridiculed  by  Butler  in  his  Hudibras, 
Part  I.  Canto  3,  Verse  190.  I  give  an  example  of  these 
poetical  echoes.  The  following  ones  are  ingenious,  lively, 
and  satirical :  — 

Pour  nous  plaire,  un  plM/»e< 

Met 

Tout  en  usage: 

Mais  on  trouve  soucent 

Vent 

Dans  son  langage. 

On  y  voit  des  Coramia 

Mis 
Comine  des  Princes, 

Apr^s  etre  venw» 

Nuds 
De  leurs  Provinces. 

The  poetical  whim  of  Cretin,  a  French  poet,  brought  into 
fashion  punning  or  equivocal  rhjines.  Maret  thus  addressed 
him  in  his  own  way : — 

L'homme,  sotart,  et  non  sgai^nnt 
Comme  un  rotisseur,  qui  live  oye, 
La  finite  d'autrui,  nonce  avnnt, 
Qu'il  la  cognoisse,  ou  qu'il  la  voye,  &c. 

In  these  lines  of  Du  Bartas,  this  poet  imagined  that  he 
imitated  the  harmonious  notes  of  the  lark :  "  the  sound "  is 
here,  however,  7iot  "an  echo  to  the  sense." 

La  gentlLle  aloiiette,  avec  son  tirelire, 
Tirelire,  a  lire,  et  tireliran,  tire 
Vers  la  voute  du  ciel,  puis  son  vol  vers  ce  lien, 
Vire  et  desire  dire  adieu  Dieu.  adieu  Dieu. 


LITERARY  FOLLIES.  301 

The  French  have  an  ingenious  kind  of  Nonsense  Verses 
called  AmpJiifjouries.  This  word  is  composed  of  a  Greek 
adverb  signifying  about,  and  of  a  substantive  signifying 
a  circle.  Tlie  following  is  a  specimen,  elegant  in  the  selec- 
tion of  words,  and  what  the  French  called  richly  rhymed, 
but  in  fact  they  are  fine  verses  without  any  meaning  what- 
ever. Pope's  Stanzas,  said  to  be  written  by  a  person  of 
quality,  to  ridicule  the  tuneful  nonsense  of  certain  bards,  and 
which  Gilbert  Wakefield  mistook  for  a  serious  composition, 
and  wrote  two  pages  of  Commentary  to  prove  this  song  was 
disjointed,  obscure,  and  absui'd,  is  an  excellent  specimen  of 
these  Amphigouries. 

AMPIIIGOURIE. 

Qu'il  est  heureux  de  se  defendre 
(^uand  le  creur  ne  s'est  pas  rendu! 
Mais  qu'il  est  faclieux  de  se  rendre 
Quand  le  bonlieur  est  suspendu ! 
Par  nil  disconrs  sans  suite  et  tendre, 
Egarez  un  cceur  (''perdu ; 
Souvent  par  un  mal-entendu 
L'amant  adroit  se  fait  entendre. 

IMITATED. 

How  happy  to  defend  our  heart, 
When  Love  has  never  thrown  a  dart! 
But  ah !  unhappy  when  it  bends, 
If  pleasure  her  soft  bliss  suspends! 
Sweet  in  a  wild  disordered  strain, 
A  lost  and  wandering  heart  to  gain! 
Oft  in  mistaken  language  wooed, 
The  skilful  lover's  understood. 

These  verses  have  such  a  resemblance  to  meaning,  that  Fonte- 
nelle  having  listened  to  the  song  imagined  that  he  had  a 
glimpse  of  sense,  and  requested  to  have  it  repeated.  "  Don't 
you  perceive,"  said  Madame  Tencin,  "  that  they  are  nonsense 
verses  ?  "  The  maUcious  wit  retorted,  "  They  are  so  much 
like  the  fine  verses  I  have  heard  here,  that  it  is  not  surprising 
1  should  be  for  once  mistaken." 


392  LITERARY   FOLLIES. 

In  the  "  Scribleriad  "  we  find  a  good  account  of  the  Cento. 
A  Cento  primarily  signifies  a  cloak  made  of  patches.  In 
poetry  it  denotes  a  work  wholly  composed  of  verses,  or  pas- 
sages promiscuously  taken  from  other  authors,  only  disposed 
in  a  new  form  or  order,  so  as  to  compose  a  new  work,  and  a 
new  meaning.  Ausonius  has  laid  down  the  rules  to  be  ob- 
served in  composing  Centos.  The  pieces  may  be  taken 
eith»ir  from  the  same  poet,  or  from  several ;  and  the  verses 
may  be  either  taken  entire,  or  divided  into  two  ;  one  half  to 
be  connected  with  another  half  taken  elsewhere ;  but  two 
verses  are  never  to  be  taken  together.  Agreeable  to  these 
rules  he  has  made  a  pleasant  nuptial  Cento  from  Virgil. 

The  Empress  Eudoxia  wrote  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  in 
centos  taken  from  Homer ;  Proba  Falconia  from  Virgil. 
Among  these  grave  triflers  may  be  mentioned  Alexander 
Ross,  who  published  "  Vii-gilius  Evangelizans,  sive  Historia 
Domini  et  Salvatoris  nostri  Jesu  Christi  Virgilianis  verbis  et 
versibus  descripta."     It  was  republished  in  1769. 

A  more  difficult  whim  is  that  of  '■'■Reciprocal  Verses" 
which  give  the  same  words  whether  read  backwards  or  for- 
wards. The  following  lines  by  Sidonius  ApoUinaris  were 
once  mfinitely  admired : — 

"Signa  ie  signa  iemere  me  tangis  et  angis." 
"Eoma  tibi  subito  motibus  il/it  amor." 

The  reader  has  only  to  take  the  pains  of  reading  the  lines 
backwards,  and  he  will  find  himself  just  where  he  was  after 
all  his  fatigue. 

Capitaine  Lasphrise,  a  French  self-taught  poet,  boasts  of 

his  mventions  ;  among  other  singularities,  one  has  at  least  the 

merit  of  la  difficulte  vaincue.     He  asserts  this  novelty  to  be 

entirely  his  own ;  the  last  word  of  every  verse  forms  the  firs! 

word  of  the  following  verse : 

Falloit-il  que  le  ciel  me  rendit  amoureux 
Amoureux,  jouissant  d'une  beaut(5  craintive, 
Craintive  a  recevoir  la  douceur  excessive, 
Excessive  au  plaisir  qui  rend  Tamant  heureux; 


LIIERARY    FOLLIi:S.  3'J3 

Henreux  si  nous  avions  quelques  paisibles  lieux, 
Lieux  oil  plus  surement  rami  fiddle  arrive, 
Arrive  sans  soup(;on  de  quelque  ami  attentive, 
Attentive  a  vouloir  nous  surprendi-e  tous  deux. 

Francis  Colonna,  an  Italian  Monk,  is  the  author  of  a  siti- 
guhir  book  entitled  ''  The  Dream  of  Poliphilus,"  in  wliicli  he 
relates  his  amours  with  a  lady  of  the  name  of  Polia.  It  was 
considered  improper  to  prefix  his  name  to  the  work  ;  but  being 
desirous  of  marking  it  by  some  peculiarity,  that  he  might 
claim  it  at  any  distant  day,  he  contrived  that  the  initial  let- 
ters of  every  chapter  should  be  formed  of  those  of  his  name, 
and  of  the  subject  he  treats.  This  strange  invention  was 
not  discovered  till  many  years  afterwards  :  when  the  wits 
employed  themselves  in  deciphering  it,  unfortunately  it  be- 
came a  source  of  literary  altercation,  being  susceptible  of 
various  readings.  The  correct  appears  thus : — Poliam  Fka.- 
TER  Franciscus  Columna  peramavit.  "  Brother  Fran- 
cis Colonna  passionately  loved  Polia."  This  gallant  monk, 
like  another  Petrarch,  made  the  name  of  his  mistress  the 
subject  of  his  amatorial  meditations  ;  and  as  the  first  called 
his  Laura,  his  Laurel,  this  called  his  Polia,  his  Polita. 

A  few  years  afterwards,  Marcellus  Palingenius  Stellatus 
employed  a  similar  artifice  in  his  Zodiacus  Yit^e,  "  The 
Zodiac  of  Life  : "  the  initial  letters  of  the  first  twenty-nine 
verses  of  the  first  book  of  this  poem  forming  his  name,  which 
curious  particular  was  probably  unknown  to  Warton  in  his 
account  of  this  work. — The  performance  is  divided  into 
twelve  books,  but  has  no  reference  to  astronomy,  which  we 
might  naturally  expect.  He  distinguished  his  twelve  books 
by  the  twelve  names  of  the  celestial  signs,  and  probably  ex- 
tended or  confined  them  purposely  to  that  number,  to  humour 
his  fancy.  Warton  however  observes,  "  this  strange  pedantic 
title  is  not  totally  without  a  conceit,  as  the  author  was  born 
at  Stellada  or  Stellafa,  a  province  of  Ferrara,  and  from 
whence  he  called  himself  Marcellus  PiUingenius  Stellatus." 
The  work  itself  is  a  curious  satire   on  the  Pope   and   the 


394  LITERARY  FOLLIES. 

Church  of  Rome.  It  occasioned  Bayle  to  commit  a  remark- 
able literary  blunder,  which  I  shall  record  in  its  place.  Of 
Italian  conceit  in  those  times,  of  which  Petrarch  was  the 
father,  with  his  perpetual  play  on  words  and  on  his  Laurel, 
or  his  mistress  Laura,  he  has  himself  afforded  a  remarkable 
example.  Our  poet  lost  his  mother,  who  died  in  her  thirty- 
eighth  year :  he  has  commemorated  her  death  by  a  sonnet 
composed  of  thirty-eight  lines.  He  seems  to  have  conceived  that 
the  exactness  of  the  number  was  equally  natural  and  tender. 

Are  we  not  to  class  among  literary  follies  the  strange  re- 
searches wliich  writers,  even  of  the  present  day,  have  made 
in  Antediluvian  times?  Forgeries  of  the  grossest  nature 
have  been  alluded  to,  or  quoted  as  authorities.  A  Book  of 
Enoch  once  attracted  considerable  attention ;  this  curious 
forgery  has  been  recently  translated :  the  Sabeans  pretend 
they  possess  a  work  written  by  Adam  I  and  tliis  work  has 
been  recently  appealed  to  in  favour  of  a  visionary  theory ! 
Astle  gravely  observes,  that  "  with  respect  to  Writings  at- 
tributed to  the  Antediluvians,  it  seems  not  only  decent  but 
rational  to  say  that  Ave  know  nothing  concerning  them." 
"Without  alluding  to  living  writers.  Dr.  Parsons,  in  his  erudite 
"  Remains  of  Jai)het,"  tracing  the  origin  of  the  alphabetical 
character,  supposes  that  letters  were  known  to  Adam  !  Some 
too  have  noticed  astronomical  libraries  in  the  Ark  of  Noah  ! 
Such  historical  memorials  are  the  deUriums  of  learning,  or 
are  founded  on  forgeries. 

Hugh  Broughton,  a  writer  of  controversy  in  the  reign  of 
James  the  First,  shows  us,  in  a  tedious  discussion  on  Scrip- 
ture chronology,  that  Rahab  was  a  harlot  at  ten  years  of  age  ; 
and  enters  into  many  grave  discussions  concerning  the  colour 
of  Aaron's  ephod,  and  the  language  which  Eve  first  spoke. 
This  writer  is  ridiculed  in  Ben  Jonson's  Comedies : — he  is 
not  without  rivals  even  in  the  present  day  !  Covarruvias,- 
after  others  of  his  school,  discovers  that  when  male  children 
are  born  they  cry  out  with  an  A,  being  the  first  vowel  of  the 
word  Adam,  while  the  female  infants  prefer  the  letter  E,  in 


LITERARY   FOLLIES.  395 

allusion  to  Eve  ;  and  we  may  add  that,  by  the  pinch  of  a 
negligent  nurse,  they  may  probably  learn  all  their  vowels. 
Of  the  pedantic  triflings  of  commentators,  a  controversy 
among  the  Portuguese  on  the  works  of  Camoens  is  not 
the  least.  Some  of  these  profound  critics,  who  affected 
great  delicacy  in  the  laws  of  epic  poetry,  pretended  to 
be  doubttul  whether  the  poet  had  fixed  on  the  right  time  for 
a  hing's  dream  ;  whether,  said  they,  a  king  should  have  a 
propitious  dream  on  his  first  going  to  bed  or  at  the  dawn  of 
the  following  morning  ?  No  one  seemed  to  be  quite  certain  ; 
they  puzzled  each  other  till  the  controversy  closed  in  this 
fehcitous  manner,  and  satisfied  both  the  night  and  the  dawn 
critics.  Barreto  discovered  that  an  accent  on  one  of  the 
words  alluded  to  in  the  controversy  would  answer  the  pur- 
pose, and  by  making  king  Manuel's  dream  to  take  place  at 
the  dawn  would  restore  Camoens  to  their  good  opinion,  and 
preserve  the  dignity  of  the  poet. 

Chevreau  begins  his  History  of  the  World  in  these  words  . 
— "  Several  learned  men  have  examined  in  what  season  God 
created  the  world,  though  there  could  hardly  be  any  season 
then,  since  there  was  no  sun,  no  moon,  nor  stars.  But  as  the 
world  must  have  been  created  in  one  of  the  four  seasons,  this 
question  has  exercised  the  talents  of  the  most  curious,  and 
opinions  are  various.  Some  say  it  was  in  the  month  of 
Nisan,  that  is,  in  the  spring :  others  maintain  that  it  was  in 
the  month  of  Tisri,  which  begins  the  civil  year  of  the  Jews, 
and  that  it  was  on  the  sixth  dag  of  this  month,  which  answers 
to  our  September,  that  Adam  and  Uve  were  created,  and  that 
it  was  on  a  Friday,  a  little  after  foui*  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon!" This  is  according  to  the  Rabbinical  notion  of  the 
ere  of  the  sabbath. 

The  Irish  antifjuaries  mention  public  libraries  that  were 
before  the  flood  ;  and  Paul  Christian  Ilsker,  with  profbuiider 
erudition,  has  given  an  exact  catalogue  of  Adam's.  Mes- 
sieurs O'Flaherty,  O'Connor,  and  O'Halloran,  have  most 
gravely  recorded  as  authentic  narrations  the  wildest  legen- 


396  LITERARY   FOLLIES. 

dary  traditions ;  and  more  recently,  to  make  confusion  doubly 
confounded,  others  have  built  up  what  they  call  theoretical 
histories  on  these  nursery  tales.  By  which  species  of  black 
art  they  contrive  to  prove  that  an  Irishman  is  an  Indian,  and 
a  Peruvian  may  be  a  Welshman,  fi-om  certain  emigrations 
which  took  place  many  centuries  before  Christ,  and  some 
about  two  centuries  alter  the  flood  !  Keating,  in  his  ''  His- 
tory of  Ireland,"  stiirts  a  favourite  hero  in  the  giant  Partho- 
lanus,  who  was  descended  from  Japhet,  and  landed  on  the 
coast  of  Munster  14th  May,  in  the  year  of  the  world  Pj87. 
This  giant  succeeded  in  his  enterprise,  but  a  domestic  mis- 
fortune attended  him  among  his  Irish  fi-iends : — his  wife 
exposed  him  to  their  laughter  by  her  loose  behaviour,  and 
provoked  him  to  such  a  degree  that  he  killed  two  favourite 
greyhounds  ;  and  this  the  learned  historian  assures  us  was 
the  Jirst  instance  of  female  infidelity  ever  known  in  Ireland  ! 

The  learned,  not  contented  with  Homer's  poetical  pre- 
eminence, make  him  the  most  authentic  historian  and  most 
accurate  geographer  of  antiquity,  besides  endowing  him  with 
all  the  arts  and  sciences  to  be  found  in  our  Encyclopedia. 
Even  in  surgery,  a  treatise  has  been  written  to  show,  by  the 
variety  of  the  wounds  of  his  heroes,  that  he  was  a  most  sci- 
entific anatomist ;  and  a  military  scholar  has  lately  told  us, 
that  from  him  is  derived  all  the  science  of  the  modern  adju- 
tant and  quarter  master-general ;  all  the  knowledge  of  tactics 
which  we  now  possess  ;  and  that  Xenophon,  Epaminondas, 
Philip,  and  Alexander,  owed  all  their  warlike  reputation  to 
Homer ! 

To  return  to  pleasanter  follies.  Des  Fontaines,  the  jour- 
nalist, who  had  wit  and  malice,  inserted  the  fragment  of  a 
letter  which  the  poet  Rousseau  wrote  to  the  younger  Racine 
whilst  he  was  at  the  Hague.  These  were  the  words :  "  I 
enjoy  the  conversation  within  these  few  days  of  my  associates 
in  Pai'nassus.  Mr.  Piron  is  an  excellent  antidote  against 
melancholy  ;  but " — &c.  Des  Fontaines  maliciously  stopped 
at  this  but.     In  the  letter  of  Rousseau  it  was,  "  but  unfortu- 


LITERARY    I'OLLIES.  ,397 

nately  he  departs  soon."     Piron  was   very  sensibly   affected 

at   this   e(niivoc.'il   hut,  and   resolved   to  revenge  himself  by 

composing   one    hundred    epigrams    against   the    malignant 

critic.     lie  had   written   sixty  before  Des  Fontaines  died  : 

but  of  these  only  two  attracted  any  notice. 

Towards  the  conclusion  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Antonio 

Cornezano  wrote  a  hundred  different  sonnets  on  one  subject, 

"  the  eyes  of  his  mistress  ! "  to   which  possibly  Shaksiieai'c 

may  allude,  when  Jaques  describes  a  lover,  with  his 

"  Woeful  ballad, 
Jlade  to  bis  mistress'  eyebrow." 

Not  inferior  to  this  ingenious  trifler  is  Nicholas  Franco,  well 
known  in  Italian  literature,  who  employed  himself  in  writing 
two  hundred  and  eigliteen  satiric  sonnets,  chiefly  on  the  fam- 
ous Peter  Aretin.  This  lampooner  had  the  honour  of  being 
hanged  at  Rome  for  his  deftmiatory  publications.  In  the 
same  class  are  to  be  placed  two  other  writers.  Brebeuf,  who 
wrote  one  hundred  and  fifty  epigrams  against  a  painted  lady. 
Another  wit,  desirous  of  emulating  him,  and  for  a  hterary 
bravado,  continued  the  same  subject,  and  pointed  at  this  un- 
fortunate fair  three  hundred  more,  without  once  repeating  the 
thoughts  of  Brebeuf!  There  is  a  collection  of  poems  called 
"  La  PUCE  des  grands  jours  de  Poitiers."  "  The  flea  of 
the  carnival  of  Poictiers."  These  poems  were  begun  by  the 
learned  Pasquier,  who  edited  the  collection,  upon  a  flea 
which  was  found  one  morning  in  the  bosom  of  the  famous 
Catherine  des  Roches  ! 

Not  long  ago,  a  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bilderdyk,  in  Flanders, 
published  poems  under  the  whimsical  title  of  "  White  and 
Red." — His  own  poems  were  called  white,  from  the  colour  ol 
his  hair ;  and  those  of  his  lady  red,  in  allusion  to  the  colour 
of  the  rose.     The  idea  must  be  Flemish ! 

Gildon,  in  his  "  Laws  of  Poetry,"  commenting  on  this  line 
of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham's  "  Essay  on  Poetry," 
"  Nature's  chief  master-piece  is  writing  tcell ;  " 
very  profoundly  informs  his   readers  "  That   what    is    here 


398  LITERARY   FOLLIES. 

said  has  not  the  least  regard  to  the  penmanship,  that  is,  to 
the  fairness  or  badness  of  the  handwriting,"  and  proceeds 
throughout  a  whole  page,  with  a  panegyric  on  a  fine  hand- 
writing !  The  stupidity  of  dulness  seems  to  have  at  times 
great  claims  to  originality  ! 

Littleton,  the  author  of  the  Latin  and  English  Dictionary, 
seems  to  have  indulged  his  favourite  propensity  to  punning 
so  far  as  even  to  introduce  a  pun  in  the  grave  and  elaborate 
work  of  a  Lexicon.  A  story  has  been  raised  to  account  for 
it,  and  it  has  been  ascribed  to  the  impatient  interjection  of 
the  lexicographer  to  his  scribe,  who,  taking  no  offence  at  the 
peevishness  of  his  master,  put  it  down  in  the  Dictionary. 
The  article  alluded  to  is,  "  Concurro,  to  run  with  others  ; 
to  run  together ;  to  come  together ;  to  fall  foul  of  one  an- 
other ;  to  CoN-c«<r,  to  CoN-rfoy." 

Mr.  Todd,  in  his  Dictionary,  has  laboured  to  show  the 
"  inaccuracy  of  this  pretended  narrative."  Yet  a  similar 
blunder  appears  to  have  happened  to  Ash.  Johnson,  while 
composing  his  Dictionary,  sent  a  note  to  the  Gentleman's 
IMagazine  to  inquire  the  etymology  of  the  -word  curmudgeon. 
Having  obtained  the  information,  he  I'ecords  in  his  work  the 
obligation  to  an  anonymous  letter-writer.  "  Curmudgeon,  a 
vicious  way  of  pronouncing  coeur  mechant.  An  unknown 
correspondent."  Ash  copied  the  word  into  his  dictionary  in 
tlus  manner :  "  Curmudgeon  :  from  the  French  cceur,  un- 
known ;  and  mechant,  a  correspondent."  This  singular  negli- 
gence ought  to  be  placed  in  the  class  of  our  literary  blunders  : 
these  form  a  pair  of  lexicographical  anecdotes. 

Two  singular  literary  follies  have  been  practised  on  Mil- 
ton. There  is  a  prose  version  of  his  "  Paradise  Lost,"  which 
was  innocently  translated  from  the  French  version  of  his 
epic  !  One  Green  published  a  specimen  of  a  new  version  of 
the  "  Paradise  Lost  "  into  blank  verse  !  For  this  purpose  he 
has  utterly  ruined  the  harmony  of  Milton's  cadences,  by  what 
he  conceived  to  be  "  bringing  that  amazing  work  somewhat 
nearer  the  summit  of  perfection." 


LITERARY   FOLLIES.  3U9 

A.  French  author,  when  his  book  had  been  received  by  the 
Frencli  Academy,  luid  the  portrait  of  Cardinal  Kieheheu 
engraved  on  his  title-page,  encircled  by  a  crown  of  forty  rays, 
in  each  of  which  was  written  the  name  of  the  celebrated /or/^ 
acadetnicians. 

The  self-exultations  of  authors,  frequently  employed  by 
injudicious  Avriters,  place  them  in  ridiculous  attitudes.  A 
writer  of  a  bad  dictionary,  which  he  intended  for  a  Cyclopi«- 
dia,  foi-med  such  an  opinion  of  its  extensive  sale,  that  he  put 
on  the  title-page  the  words  ^^Jirst  edition,"  a  hint  to  tlie 
gentle  reader  that  it  would  not  be  the  last.  Desmarest  was 
so  delighted  with  his  "  Clovis,"  an  epic  poem,  that  he  solemnly 
concludes  his  preface  with  a  thanksgiving  to  God,  to  whom 
he  attributes  all  its  glory  !  This  is  like  that  conceited  mem- 
ber of  a  French  Parliament,  who  was  overheard,  after  his 
tedious  harangue,  muttering  most  devoutly  to  himself,  "  Non 
nobis  Domine." 

Several  works  have  been  produced  from  some  odd  coinci- 
dence with  the  name  of  their  authors.  Thus,  De  Saussay 
has  written  a  folio  volume,  consisting  of  paneg}Tics  of  persons 
of  eminence  whose  christian  names  were  Andrcto  ;  because 
Andreic  was  his  own  name.  Two  Jesuits  made  a  similar 
collection  of  illustrious  men  whose  christian  names  were 
Theophilus  and  Philip,  being  their  own.  Anthony  Saunderus 
has  also  composed  a  treatise  of  illustrious  Anthonies  !  And 
we  have  one  Buchanan  who  has  written  the  lives  of  those 
persons  who  were  so  fortunate  as  to  have  been  his  name- 
sakes. 

Several  forgotten  writers  have  frequently  been  intruded 
ou  the  public  eye,  merely  through  such  trifling  coincidences 
as  being  members  of  some  particular  society,  or  natives  of 
some  particular  country.  Cordeliers  have  stood  forward  to 
revive  the  writings  of  Duns  Scotus,  because  he  had  been  a 
cordelier  ;  and  a  Jesuit  compiled  a  folio  on  the  antiquities  of 
a  province,  merely  from  the  circumstance  that  the  founder  of 
his  order,  Ignatius  Loyola,  had  been  born  there.     Several 


400  LITERARY  FOLLIES. 

of  the  classics  are  violently  extolled  above  others,  merely 
from  the  accidental  circumstance  of  their  editors  having  col- 
lected a  vast  number  of  notes,  which  they  resolved  to  dis- 
charge on  the  public.  County  histories  have  been  frequently 
compiled,  and  provincial  writers  have  received  a  temporary 
existence,  from  the  accident  of  some  obscure  individual  being 
an  inhabitant  of  some  obscure  town. 

On  such  hterary  follies  Malebranche  has  made  tliis  refined 
observation.  The  critics,  standing  in  some  way  connected 
with  the  author,  their  self-love  inspires  them,  and  abundantly 
furnishes  eulogiums  wliich  the  author  never  merited,  that 
they  may  thus  obliquely  reflect  some  praise  on  themselves. 
This  is  made  so  adroitly,  so  delicately,  and  so  concealed,  that 
it  is  not  perceiv(;d. 

The  following  are  strange  inventions,  originating  in  the 
wilful  bad  taste  of  the  authors.  Otto  Venius,  the  master 
of  Rubens,  is  the  designer  of  Le  Theatre  moral  de  la  Vie 
httmaine.  In  this  emblematical  history  of  human  life,  he  has 
taken  his  subjects  from  Horace ;  but  certainly  his  conceptions 
are  not  Horatian.  He  takes  every  image  in  a  literal  sense. 
If  Horace  says,  "  Misce  stultitiam  consiliis  brevem,"  be- 
hold, Venius  takes  brevis  personally,  and  represents  Folly  as 
a  little  short  child  !  of  not  above  three  or  four  years  old !  In 
tlie  emblem  which  answers  Horaces's  "  Raro  antecedentem 
scelestum  deseruit  pede  pcena  Claud o,"  we  find  Punishment 
w'nh.  a  wooden  leg. — And  for  "pulvis  et  umbra  sumus," 
we  have  a  dark  burying  vault,  with  dust  sprinkled  about  the 
flooi",  and  a  shadow  walking  upright  between  two  ranges  of 
urns.  For  "  Virtus  est  vitium  fugure,  et  sapientia  prima  stul- 
titid  caruisse,"  most  flatly  he  gives  seven  or  eight  Vices 
pursuing  Virtue,  and  Folly  just  at  the  heels  of  Wisdom.  I 
saw  in  an  Enghsh  Bible  printed  in  Holland  an  instance  of 
the  same  taste  :  the  artist,  to  illustrate  "  Thou  seest  the  moto 
in  thy  neighbour's  eye,  but  not  the  beam  in  thine  own,"  has 
actually  placed  an  immense  beam  which  projects  from  the 
eye  of  the  caviller  to  the  ground  ! 


LTTRRARY    CONTROVERSY.  401 

As  a  contrast  to  the  too  obvious  taste  of  Venius,  may  be 
placed  Cr.sARE  Di  Ripa,  who  is  the  author  of  an  Italian  work, 
translated  into  most  European  languages,  the  Iconologia ; 
the  favourite  book  of  the  age,  and  the  fertile  parent  of  the 
most  absurd  offspring  whieh  Taste  has  known.  Ripa  is  as 
darkly  subtile  as  Venius  is  obvious;  and  as  far-fetched  in  his 
conceits  as  the  other  is  literal.  Ripa  represents  Beauty  by  a 
naked  lady,  with  her  head  in  a  cloud ;  because  the  true  idea 
of  beauty  is  hard  to  be  conceived  !  Flattery,  by  a  lady  with 
a  flute  in  her  hand,  and  a  stag  at  her  feet,  because  stags  are 
said  to  love  music  so  much,  that  they  suffer  themselves  to  be 
taken,  if  you  play  to  them  on  a  flute.  Framl,  with  two 
hearts  in  one  hand,  and  a  mask  in  the  other;  —  his  collection 
is  too  numerous  to  point  out  more  instances.  Ripa  also  de- 
scribes how  the  allegorical  figures  are  to  be  coloured ;  Hope 
is  to  have  a  sky-blue  robe,  because  she  always  looks  towards 
heaven.     Enough  of  these  capriccios  ! 


LITERARY   CONTROVERSY. 

In  the  article  Milton,  I  had  occasion  to  give  some  stric- 
tures on  the  asperity  of  literary  controversy,  drawn  from  his 
own  and  Salmasius's  writings.  If  to  some  the  subject  has 
appeared  exceptionable,  to  me,  I  confess,  it  seems  useful,  and 
I  shall  therefore  add  some  other  particulars  ;  for  this  topic 
has  many  branches.  Of  the  following  specimens  the  gross- 
ness  and  malignity  are  extreme ;  yet  they  were  employed  by 
the  first  scholars  in  Europe. 

INIartin  Luther  was  not  destitute  of  genius,  of  learning,  or 
of  eloquence ;  but  his  violence  disfigured  his  works  with  sin- 
gularities of  abuse.  The  great  reformer  of  superstition  had 
himself  all  the  vulgar  ones  of  his  day ;  he  believed  that  flies 
were  devils :  and  that  he  had  had  a  bufTeting  with  Satan, 
when  his  left  ear  felt  the  prodigious  beating.     Hear  him  ex- 

VuL.  I  26 


402  LITERARY   CONTROVERSY. 

press  himself  on  the  CathoHc  divines.  "  The  Papists  are  all 
asses,  and  will  ahvays  remain  asses ;  Put  them  in  whatever 
sauce  you  choose,  boiled,  roasted,  baked,  fried,  skinned,  beat, 
hashed,  they  are  always  the  same  asses." 

Gentle  and  moderate,  compared  with  a  salute  to  his  Holi- 
ness : — •'  The  Pope  was  born  out  of  the  Devil's  posteriors. 
He  is  full  of  devils,  lies,  blasphemies,  and  idolatries ;  he  is 
anti-Christ ;  the  robber  of  churches  ;  the  ravisher  of  virgins  ; 
the  greatest  of  pimps  ;  the  governor  of  Sodom,  &c.  If  the 
Turks  lay  hold  of  us,  then  we  shall  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
Devil ;  but  if  we  remain  with  the  Pope,  we  shall  be  in  hell. — 
What  a  pleasing  sight  would  it  be  to  see  the  Pope  and  the 
Cardinals  hanging  on  one  gallows  in  exact  order,  like  the 
seals  which  dangle  from  the  bulls  of  the  Pope  !  What  an 
excellent  council  would  they  hold  under  the  gallows !  " 

Sometimes,  desirous  of  catching  the  attention  of  the  vulgar, 
Luther  attempts  to  enliven  his  style  by  the  grossest  buffoone- 
ries :  "  Take  care,  my  little  Popa !  my  little  ass !  Go  on 
slowly :  the  times  are  slippery :  this  year  is  dangerous :  if 
thou  faUest,  they  will  exclaim,  See !  how  our  little  Pope  is 
spoilt !  "  It  was  fortunate  for  the  cause  of  the  Reformation 
that  the  violence  of  Luther  was  softened  in  a  considerable 
degree  by  the  meek  Melancthon,  who  often  poured  honey  on 
the  sting  inflicted  by  the  angry  wasp.  Luther  was  no  re- 
specter of  kings  ;  he  was  so  fortunate,  indeed,  as  to  find 
among  his  antagonists  a  crowned  head  ;  a  gi'eat  good  fortune 
for  an  obscure  controversiaUst,  and  the  very  ptmctvm  saliens 
of  controversy.  Our  Henry  VIIL  wrote  his  book  against 
the  new  doctrine  :  then  warm  from  scholastic  studies,  Henry 
presented  Leo  X.  with  a  work  highly  creditable  to  his  abili- 
ties, according  to  the  genius  of  the  age.  Collier,  in  his 
Ecclesiastical  History,  has  analyzed  the  book,  and  does  not 
ill  describe  its  spirit :  "  Henry  seems  superior  to  his  adver- 
sary in  the  vigour  and  propriety  of  his  style,  in  the  force  of 
his  reasoning,  and  the  learning  of  his  citations.  It  is  true  he 
leans  too  much  upon  his  character,  argues  in  his  garter-robes, 


LITERARY    CONTROVERSY.  403 

and  writes  as  'twere  with  his  scepter"  But  Luther  in  reply 
abandons  his  pen  to  all  kinds  of  railing  and  abuse.  He  ad- 
dresses Henry  VIII.  in  the  following  style  :  "  It  is  hard  to 
say  if  folly  can  be  more  foolish,  or  stupidity  more  stupid, 
than  is  the  head  of  Henry.  He  has  not  attacked  me  with 
the  heart  of  a  king,  but  with  the  impudence  of  a  knave. 
This  rotten  worm  of  the  earth  having  blasphemed  the  majesty 
of  my  king,  I  have  a  just  right  to  bespatter  his  Elnglish  maj- 
esty with  his  own  dirt  and  ordure.  This  Henry  has  bed." 
Some  of  his  original  expi-essions  to  our  Henry  VIII.  are 
these :  "  Stulta,  ridicula,  et  verissime  Henriciana  et  Thomas- 
tica  sunt  hrec — Regem  Anglije  Henricum  istum  plane  mentiri, 
&c. — Hoc  agit  inquietus  Satan,  ut  nos  a  Scripturis  avocet  per 
sceleratos  Henricos"  &c. — He  was  repaid  with  capital  and 
interest  by  an  anonymous  reply,  said  to  have  been  written  by 
Sir  Thomas  More,  who  concludes  his  arguments  by  leaving 
Luther  in  language  not  necessary  to  translate  :  "  cum  suis 
furiis  et  furoribus,  cum  suis  merdis  et  stercoribus  cacantem 
cacatumque."  Such  were  the  vigorous  elegancies  of  a  con- 
troversy on  the  Seven  Sacraments  !  Long  after,  the  court  of 
Rome  had  not  lost  the  taste  of  these  "  bitter  herbs :  "  for  in 
the  bull  of  the  canonization  of  Ignatius  Loyola  in  August, 
1623,  Luther  is  called  monstrum  teterrimum  et  detestabilis 
pestis. 

Calvin  was  less  tolerable,  for  he  had  no  Melancthon !  His 
adversaries  are  never  others  than  knaves,  lunatics,  drunkards, 
and  assassins !  Sometimes  they  are  characterized  by  the  fa- 
miliar appellatives  of  bulls,  asses,  cats,  and  hogs  !  By  him 
Catliolic  and  Lutheran  are  alike  hated.  Yet,  after  having 
given  vent  to  this  virulent  humour,  he  frequently  boasts  of 
his  mildness.  Wlien  he  reads  over  his  writings  he  tells  us, 
that  he  is  astonished  at  his  forbearance  ;  but  this,  he  adds,  is 
the  duty  of  every  Christian!  at  the  same  time,  he  generally 
finishes  a  period  with — "  Do  you  hear,  you  dog  ?  "  "  Do  you 
hear,  madman  ?  " 

Beza,  the  disciple  of  Calvin,  sometimes  imitates  th(>  luxu- 


404  LITERAKY   CONTROVERSY. 

riant  abuse  of  liis  master.  When  he  writes  against  Tilleniont, 
a  Lutheran  minister,  he  bestows  on  him  the  following  titles 
of  honour : — "  Polyphemus ;  an  ape  ;  a  great  ass,  who  is  dis- 
tinguished from  other  asses  by  wearing  a  hat ;  an  ass  on  two 
feet ;  a  monster  composed  of  pai*t  of  an  ape  and  wild  ass  ;  a 
villain  who  merits  hanging  on  the  first  tree  we  find."  And 
Beza  was,  no  doubt,  desirous  of  the  ofiice  of  executioner ! 

The  Catholic  party  is  by  no  means  inferior  in  the  felicities 
of  their  style.  The  Jesuit  Raynaud  calls  Erasmus  the  "  Ba- 
tavian  buffoon,"  and  accuses  him  of  nourishing  the  egg  which 
Luther  hatched.  These  men  were  alike  supposed  by  their 
friends  to  be  the  inspired  regulators  of  Religion ! 

Bishop  Bedell,  a  great  and  good  man,  respected  even  by 
his  adversaries,  in  an  address  to  his  clergy,  observes,  "  Our 
caUing  is  to  deal  with  errors,  not  to  disgrace  the  man  with 
scolding  words.  It  is  said  of  Alexander,  I  think,  when  he 
overheard  one  of  his  soldiers  railing  lustily  against  Darius 
his  enemy,  that  he  reproved  him,  and  added,  '  Friend,  I  en- 
tertain thee  to  fight  against  Darius,  not  to  revile  him  ; '  and 
my  sentiments  of  treating  the  Catholics,"  concludes  Bedell, 
"  are  not  conformable  to  the  practice  of  Luther  and  Calvin ; 
but  they  were  but  men,  and  perhaps  we  must  confess  they 
suffered  themselves  to  yield  to  the  violence  of  passion." 

The  Fathers  of  the  Church  were  proficients  in  the  art  of 
abuse,  and  very  ingeniously  defended  it.  St.  Austin  affirms 
that  the  most  caustic  personality  may  produce  a  wonderful 
effect,  in  opening  a  man's  eyes  to  his  own  follies.  He  illus- 
trates his  position  with  a  story,  given  with  great  simplicity, 
of  his  mother  Saint  Monica  \vith  hesr  maid.  Saint  Monica 
certainly  would  have  been  a  confirmed  drunkard,  had  not  her 
maid  timelily  and  outrageously  abused  her.  The  story  will 
amuse. — "  My  mother  had  by  little  and  little  accustomed 
herself  to  relish  wine.  They  used  to  send  her  to  the  cellar, 
as  being  one  of  the  soberest  in  the  family :  she  first  sipped 
from  the  jug  and  tasted  a  few  drops,  for  she  abhorred  wine, 
and  did  not  care   to  drink.     However,  she  gradually  accus 


LITERARY  CONTROVERSY.  405 

tomed  herself,  and  from  sipping  it  on  her  hps  she  swallowed 
a  draught.  As  people  from  the  smallest  faults  insensibly  in- 
crease, she  at  length  liked  wine,  and  drank  bumpers.  But 
one  day  being  alone  with  the  maid  who  usually  attended  her 
to  the  cellar,  they  quari'elled,  and  the  maid  bittei'ly  reproached 
her  with  being  a  drvnJcard !  That  single  word  struck  her 
so  poignantly  that  it  opened  her  understanding ;  and  reflect- 
ing on  the  deformity  of  the  vice,  she  desisted  forever  from  its 
use." 

To  jeer  and  play  the  droll,  or,  in  his  own  words,  de  bortf- 
fonnei\  was  a  mode  of  controversy  the  great  Arnauld  de- 
fended, as  permitted  by  the  Avritiugs  of  the  holy  fathers.  It 
is  stiU  more  singular,  when  he  not  only  brings  forward  as  an 
example  of  this  ribaldry,  Elijah  mocking  at  the  false  divini- 
ties, but  God  himself  bantering  the  first  man  after  his  fall. 
lie  justifies  the  injurious  epithets  which  he  has  so  liberally 
bestowed  on  his  adversaries  by  the  example  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  the  apostles!  It  was  on  these  grounds  also  that  the 
celebrated  Pascal  apologized  for  the  invectives  with  which  he 
has  occasionally  disfigured  his  Provincial  Letters.  A  Jesuit 
has  collected  "An  Alphabetical  Catalogue  of  the  Names  of 
Beasts  by  which  the  Fathers  characterized  the  Heretics ! " 
It  may  be  found  in  Erotemata  de  malts  ac  bonis  Libris,  p.  93, 
4to.  1653,  of  Father  Raynaud.  This  list  of  brutes  and  in- 
sects, among  which  are  a  vast  variety  of  serpents,  is  accom- 
panied by  the  names  of  the  heretics  designated ! 

Henry  Fitzsermon,  an  Irish  Jesuit,  was  imprisoned  for  liis 
papistical  designs  and  seditious  preaching.  During  his  con- 
finement he  proved  himself  to  be  a  great  amateur  of  con- 
troversy. He  said,  "  he  felt  like  a  bear  tied  to  a  stake,  and 
wanted  somebody  to  bait  him."  A  kind  office,  zealously 
undertaken  by  the  learned  Usher,  then  a  young  man.  He 
engaged  to  dispute  with  him  once  a  week  on  the  subject  of 
antichrist!  They  met  several  times.  It  appears  that  our 
hear  was  out-woi-ried,  and  declined  any  further  dog-baiting. 
This  spread  an  universal  joy  through  the    Protestants   in 


406  LITERARY   CONTROVERSY. 

Dublin.  At  flic  early  period  of  the  Reformation,  Dr.  Smith 
of  Oxford  abjured  papistry,  with  the  hope  of  retaining  his 
professorship,  but  it  was  given  to  Peter  Martyr.  On  this 
our  Doctor  recants,  and  writes  several  controversial  works 
against  Peter  Martyr  ;  the  most  curious  part  of  which  is  the 
singular  mode  adopted  of  attacking  others,  as  well  as  Peter 
Martyr.  In  his  margin  he  frequently  breaks  out  thus  :  "  Let 
Hooper  read  this  ! " — "  Here,  Ponet,  open  your  eyes  and  see 
your  errors  !  " — "  Ergo,  Cox,  thou  art  damned  !  "  In  this 
mamier,  without  expressly  writing  against  these  persons,  the 
stirring  polemic  contrived  to  keep  up  a  sharp  bush-fighting  in 
his  margins.  Such  was  the  spirit  of  those  times,  very  differ- 
ent from  our  own.  When  a  modern  bishop  was  just  advanced 
to  a  mitre,  his  bookseller  begged  to  re-publish  a  popular  the- 
ological tract  of  his  against  another  bishop,  because  he  might 
now  meet  him  on  equal  terms.  My  lord  answered — "  Mr. 
*  *  *,  no  more  controversy  now  !  "  Our  good  bishop  re- 
sembled Baldwin,  who  from  a  simple  monk,  arrived  to  the 
honour  of  the  see  of  Canterbury.  The  successive  honours 
successively  changed  his  manners.  Urban  the  Second  in- 
scribed his  brief  to  him  in  this  concise  description — Balduino 
Monastico  ferventissimo,  Abhati  calido,  Episcopo  tepido, 
Archicpiscopo  remisso! 

On  the  subject  of  literary  controversies,  we  cannot  pass 
over  the  various  sects  of  the  scholastics :  a  volume  might  be 
compiled  of  their  ferocious  wars,  which  in  more  than  one  in- 
stance were  accompanied  by  stones  and  daggers.  The  most 
memorable,  on  account  of  the  extent,  the  violence,  and  dura- 
tion of  their  contests,  are  those  of  the  Nominalists  and  the 
Realists. 

It  Avas  a  most  subtle  question  assuredly,  and  the  world 
thought  for  a  long  while  that  their  happiness  depended  on 
deciding,  whether  universals,  that  is  genera,  have  a  real 
essence,  and  exist  independent  of  particulars,  that  is  species : 
— whether,  for  instance,  we  could  form  an  idea  of  asses,  prior 
to  individual  asses?     Roscehnus,  in  the  eleventh  century, 


LITERARY  CONTROVERSY.  407 

adopted  the  opinion  that  universals  have  no  real  existence, 
either  before  or  in  individuals,  but  are  mere  paraes  and 
words  by  which  the  kind  of  individuals  is  expressed  ;  a  tenet 
propagated  by  Abelai'd,  which  produced  the  sect  of  Nominal' 
ists.  But  the  Realists  asserted  that  universals  existed  inde- 
pendent of  individuals, — though  they  were  somewhat  divided 
between  the  various  opinions  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Of  the 
Realists  the  most  famous  were  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Duns 
Scotus.  The  cause  of  the  Nominalists  was  almost  despe- 
rate, till  Occam  in  the  fourteenth  century  revived  the  dying 
embers.  Louis  XI.  adopted  the  Nominalists,  and  the  Nom- 
inalists flourished  at  large  in  France  and  Germany;  but 
unfortunately  Pope  John  XXIII.  patronized  the  Realists, 
and  throughout  Italy  it  Avas  dangerous  for  a  Nominalist  to 
open  his  lips.  The  French  King  wavered,  and  the  Pope 
triumphed  ;  his  majesty  published  an  edict  in  1474,  in  which 
he  silenced  for  ever  the  Nominalists,  and  ordered  their  books 
to  be  fastened  up  in  their  libraries  with  iron  chains,  that  they 
might  not  be  read  by  young  students !  The  leaders  of  that 
sect  fled  into  England  and  Germany,  where  they  united  their 
forces  with  Luther  and  the  first  Reformers. 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  violence  with  which  these  dis- 
putes were  conducted.  Vives  himself,  who  witnessed  the 
contests,  says  that,  "  when  the  contending  parties  had  ex- 
hausted their  stock  of  verbal  abuse,  they  often  came  to 
blows ;  and  it  Avas  not  uncommon  in  these  quarrels  about 
universals,  to  see  the  combatants  engaging  not  only  with  their 
fists,  but  with  clubs  and  swords,  so  that  many  have  been 
wounded  and  some  killed." 

On  this  war  of  words  and  all  this  terrifying  nonsense  John 
of  Salisbury  observes,  "  that  there  had  been  more  time  con- 
sumed than  the  Cajsars  had  employed  in  making  themselves 
masters  of  the  world  ;  that  the  riches  of  Croesus  were  inferior 
to  the  treasures  that  had  been  exhausted  in  this  controvei-sy ; 
and  that  the  contending  parties,  after  having  spent  their 
whole  lives  in  this  single  point,  had  neither  been  so  happy  aa 


408  LITERARY  CONTROVERSY. 

to  determine  it  to  their  satisfaction,  nor  to  find  in  the  laby- 
rinths of  science  where  they  had  been  groping  any  discovery 
that  was  worth  the  pams  they  had  taken."  It  may  be  added 
that  Ramus  having  attacked  Aristotle,  for  "  teaching  ua 
chiiBcras,"  all  his  scholars  revolted  ;  the  parliament  put  a 
stop  to  his  lectures,  and  at  length  having  brought  the  matter 
into  a  law  court,  he  was  declared  "  to  be  msolent  and  daring" 
— the  king  proscribed  his  works,  he  was  ridiculed  on  the 
stage,  and  hissed  at  by  his  scholars.  When  at  length,  during 
the  plague,  he  opened  again  his  schools,  he  drew  on  himself 
a  fresh  storm  by  reforming  the  pronunciation  of  the  letter  Q, 
which  they  then  pronounced  like  K — Kiskis  for  Quisquis, 
and  Kamkam  for  Quamquam.  This  umovation  was  once 
more  laid  to  his  charge :  a  new  rebellion  !  and  a  new  ejec- 
tion of  the  Anti-Aristotelian  !  The  brother  of  that  Gabriel 
Harvey  who  was  the  friend  of  Spenser,  and  with  Gabriel  had 
been  the  whetstone  of  the  town-wits  of  his  time,  distinguished 
himself  by  his  wrath  against  the  Stagyrite.  After  having 
with  Gabriel  predicted  an  earthquake,  and  alarmed  the 
kingdom,  which  never  took  place  (that  is  the  earthquake, 
not  the  alarm),  the  wits  buffeted  him.  Nash  says  of  him, 
that  "  Tarlton  at  the  theatre  made  jests  of  him,  and  Elderton 
consumed  his  ale-crammed  nose  to  nothing,  in  bear-baiting 
him  with  whole  bundles  of  ballads."  IMarlow  declared  him 
to  be  "  an  ass  fit  only  to  preach  of  the  iron  age."  Stung  to 
madness  by  this  lively  nest  of  hornets,  he  avenged  himseh"  in 
a  very  cowardly  manner — he  attacked  Aristotle  liimself !  foi 
he  set  Aristotle  with  his  heels  itpwards  on  the  school  gates  at 
Cambridge,  and  with  asses'  ears  on  his  head ! 

But  this  controversy  concerning  Aristotle  and  the  school 
divinity  was  even  prolonged.  A  professor  in  the  College  at 
Naples  published  in  1688  four  volumes  of  peripatetic  philos- 
ophy, to  establish  the  principles  of  Aristotle.  The  work  was 
exploded,  and  he  wrote  an  abusive  treatise  under  the  nam  de 
guerre  of  Benedetto  Aletino.  A  man  of  letters,  Constantino 
Griraaldi,   replied.     Aletino   rejoined ;    he  wrote  letters,  an 


LllERARY   CONTROVERSY.  409 

apology  for  the  letter?,  and  would  have  written  more  for 
Aristotle  than  Aristotle  himself  perhaps  would  have  done 
However,  Grimaldi  was  no  ordinary  antagonist,  and  not  to  be 
outwearied.  lie  had  not  only  the  best  of  the  argument,  but 
he  was  resolved  to  tell  the  world  so,  as  long  as  the  world 
would  listen.  Whether  he  killed  off  Father  Benedietus,  the 
first  author,  is  not  atfirmed ;  but  the  latter  died  during  the 
controversy.  Grimaldi,  however,  afterwards  pursued  his 
ghost,  and  buffeted  the  father  in  liis  grave.  This  enraged 
the  University  of  Naples;  and  the  Jesuits,  to  a  man,  de- 
nounced Grimaldi  to  Pope  Benedict  Xlll.  and  to  the  viceroy 
of  ]S^aples.  On  this  the  Pope  issued  a  bull  proliibiting  the 
reading  of  Grimaldi's  works,  or  keeping  them,  under  pain  of 
excommunication  ;  and  the  viceroy,  moi'e  active  than  the 
buU,  caused  all  the  copies  which  were  found  in  the  author's 
house  to  be  thrown  into  the  sea  !  The  author  with  tears  in 
his  eyes  beheld  his  expatriated  volumes,  hopeless  that  their 
voyage  would  have  been  successful.  However,  all  the  little 
family  of  the  Grimaldi's  were  not  drowned — for  a  storm 
arose,  and  happily  drove  ashore  many  of  the  floating  copies, 
and  these  falling  into  charitable  hands,  the  heretical  opinions 
of  poor  Grimaldi  against  Aristotle  and  school  divinity  were 
still  read  by  those  who  were  not  out-terrified  by  the  Pope's 
bulls.  The  salted  passages  were  still  at  hand,  and  quoted 
with  a  double  zest  against  the  Jesuits  ! 

We  now  turn  to  writers  whose  controversy  was  kindled 
only  by  subjects  of  polite  literature.  The  particulars  form  a 
curious  picture  of  the  taste  of  the  age. 

''  There  is,"  says  Joseph  Scaliger,  that  great  critic  and 
reviler,  "  an  art  of  abuse  or  slandering,  of  which  those  that 
nre  ignorant  may  be  said  to  defame  others  much  less  than 
they  show  a  willingness  to  defame." 

"  Literary  wars,"  says  Bayle,  "  are  sometimes  as  lasting  a3 
they  are  terrible."  A  disputation  between  two  great  scholars 
was  so  interminably  violent,  that  it  lasted  thirty  years  !  He 
humourously  compares  its  duration  to  the  German  war 
which  lasted  as  long. 


410  LITERARY  CONTROVERSf. 

Baillet,  when  he  refuted  the  senthnents  of  a  certain  author, 
always  did  it  without  naming  him ;  but  when  he  found  any 
observation  which  he  deemed  commendable,  he  quoted  his 
name.  Bayle  observes,  that  "  this  is  an  excess  of  politeness, 
prejudicial  to  that  freedom  which  should  ever  exist  in  the 
republic  of  letters  ;  that  it  should  be  allowed  always  to  name 
those  whom  we  refute ;  and  tliat  it  is  sufficient  for  this  pur- 
pose that  we  banish  asperity,  malice,  and  indecency." 

After  these  preliminary  observations,  I  shall  bring  forward 
various  examples  where  this  excellent  advice  is  by  no  means 
regarded. 

Erasmus  produced  a  dialogue,  in  which  he  ridiculed  those 
scholars  who  were  servile  imitators  of  Cicero  ;  so  servile, 
that  they  would  employ  no  expression  but  what  was  found  in 
the  works  of  that  writer ;  every  thing  with  them  was  Cicero- 
nianized.  This  dialogue  is  written  with  great  humour.  Julius 
Cajsar  Scaliger,  the  father,  who  was  then  unknown  to  the 
world,  had  been  long  looking  for  some  occasion  to  distinguish 
himself;  he  now  wrote  a  defence  of  Cicero,  but  which  in  fact 
was  one  continued  invective  against  Erasmus :  he  there 
treats  the  latter  as  illiterate,  a  drunkard,  an  impostor,  an 
apostate,  a  hangman,  a  demon  hot  fi-om  hell !  The  same 
Scaliger,  acting  on  the  same  principle  of  distinguishing  him- 
self at  the  cost  of  others,  attacked  Cardan's  best  work  De 
Subiilitate :  his  criticism  did  not  appear  till  seven  years  after 
the  first  edition  of  the  work,  and  then  he  obstinately  stuck  to 
that  edition,  though  Cardan  had  corrected  it  in  subsequent 
ones ;  but  this  Scaliger  chose,  that  he  might  have  a  wider 
field  tor  his  attack.  After  this,  a  rumour  spread  that  Cardan 
had  died  of  vexation  from  Julius  Ca3sar's  invincible  pen  ; 
then  Scaliger  pretended  to  feel  all  the  regret  possible  for  a 
man  he  had  killed,  and  whom  he  now  praised :  however,  his 
regret  had  as  little  foundation  as  his  triumph  ;  for  Cardan 
outlived  Scaliger  many  years,  and  valued  his  criticisms  too 
cheaply  to  have  suSered  them  to  have  disturbed  his  quiet. 
All  this  does  not  exceed  the  Invectives  of  Poggius,  who  has 


LITERARY   CONTROVERSY.  4n 

tlms  entitled  several  literary  libels  composed  against  some  of 
his  adversaries,  Laiirentius  Valla,  Philelphus,  &c.,  who  re- 
turned the  poisoned  chalice  to  his  own  lips  ;  declamations  of 
scurrility,  obscenity,  and  calumny  ! 

Sciojipius  was  a  worthy  successor  of  the  Scaligers  :  his 
favourite  expression  was,  that  he  had  trodden  down  his  ad- 
versary. 

Scioi)pius  was  a  critic,  as  skilful  as  Salmasius  or  Scahger, 
but  still  more  learned  in  the  language  of  abuse.  This  cynic 
was  the  Attila  of  authors.  He  boasted  that  he  had  oc- 
casioned the  deaths  of  Casaubon  and  Scaliger.  Detested 
and  dreaded  as  the  public  scourge,  Scioppius,  at  the  close  of 
his  life,  was  fearful  he  should  find  no  retreat  in  which  he 
might  be  secure. 

The  great  Casaubon  employs  the  dialect  of  St.  Giles's  in 
his  furious  attacks  on  the  learned  Dalechamps,  the  Latin 
translator  of  Athenajus.  To  this  great  physician  he  stood 
more  deeply  indebted  than  he  chose  to  confess  ;  and  to  con- 
ceal the  claims  of  this  literary  creditor,  he  called  out  Ve- 
sanum  !  Insanum !  Tiresiam  !  &c.  It  was  the  fashion  of 
that  day  with  the  ferocious  heroes  of  the  literary  republic,  to 
overwhelm  each  other  with  invectives,  and  to  consider  that 
their  own  grandeur  consisted  in  the  magnitude  of  their 
volumes  ;  and  their  triumphs  in  reducing  their  brother  giants 
into  puny  dwarfs.  In  science,  Linnaeus  had  a  dread  of  con- 
troversy— conqueror  or  conquered  we  cannot  escape  without 
disgrace  !  Mathiolus  would  have  been  the  great  man  of  his 
day,  had  he  not  meddled  with  such  matters.  Who  is  grati- 
fied by  "the  mad  Cornarus,  or  "the  flayed  Fox?"  titles 
which  Fuchsius  and  Cornarus,  two  eminent  botanists,  have 
bestowed  on  each  other.  Some  who  were  too  fond  of  con- 
troversy, as  they  grew  wiser,  have  refused  to  take  up  the 
gauntlet. 

The  heat  and  acrimony  of  verbal  critics  have  exceeded 
description.  Their  stigmas  and  anathemas  have  been  long 
known   to  bear  no  [)roportion  to  the  off"ences  against   wliich 


412  LITERARY    CONTROVERSY. 

they  have  been  directed.  "  God  confound  you,"  cried  one 
grammarian  to  another,  "for  your  theory  of  impersonal 
verbs  ! "  There  was  a  long  and  terrible  controversy  for- 
merly, whether  the  Florentine  dialect  was  to  prevail  over  the 
others.  The  academy  Avas  put  to  great  trouble,  and  the 
Anti-Cruscans  were  often  on  the  point  of  annulling  this  su- 
premacy ;  una  mordace  scritura  was  applied  to  one  of  these 
literary  canons  ;  and  in  a  letter  of  those  times  the  following 
paragraph  appears  : — "  Pescetti  is  preparing  to  give  a  second 
answer  to  Beni,  which  will  not  please  him ;  I  now  believe 
the  prophecy  of  Cavalier  Tedeschi  will  be  verified,  and  that 
this  controversy,  begun  with  pens,  will  end  with  poniards  ! " 

Fabretti,  an  Italian,  wrote  furiously  against  Gronovius, 
whom  he  calls  Grunnovius :  he  compared  him  to  all  those 
animals  whose  voice  Avas  expressed  by  the  word  Grunnire, 
to  grunt.  Gronovius  was  so  malevolent  a  critic,  that  he  was 
distinguished  by  the  title  of  the  "  Grammatical  Cur." 

When  critics  venture  to  attack  the  person  as  well  as  the 
performance  of  an  author,  I  recommend  the  salutary  proceed- 
ings of  liuberus,  the  writer  of  an  esteemed  Universal  His- 
tory. He  had  been  so  roughly  handled  by  Perizonius,  that 
he  obliged  liim  to  make  the  amende  honorable  in  a  court  of 
justice  ;  where,  however,  I  fear  an  English  jury  would  give 
the  smallest  damages. 

Certain  authors  may  be  distinguished  by  the  title  of  Lit- 
erary BoBADiLS,  or  fighting  authors.  One  of  our  own 
celebrated  writers  drew  his  sword  on  a  reviewer ;  and  an- 
other, when  his  farce  was  condemned,  offered  to  fight  any  one 
of  the  audience  who  hissed.  Scudery,  brother  of  the  cele- 
brated Mademoiselle  Scudery,  was  a  true  Parnassian  buHy. 
The  first  publication  which  brought  him  into  notice  was  his 
edition  of  the  works  of  his  friend  Theophile.  He  concludes 
the  preface  with  these  singular  expressions — "  I  do  not  hes- 
itate to  declare,  that,  amongst  all  the  dead,  and  all  the  living, 
there  is  no  person  who  has  any  thing  to  show  that  approa(,'hes 
the  force  of  this  vigorous  genius ;    but  if  amongst  the  latter, 


LITERARY   CONTROVERSY.  41 -J 

any  one  were  ?o  extravagant  as  to  consider  that  I  detract 
from  his  imaginary  glory,  to  show  him  tliat  I  fear  as  little  <is 
I  esteem  him,  this  is  to  inform  him  that  my  name  is 

"  De  Scudery," 

A  similar  rhodomontade  is  that  of  Claude  Tixdlon,  a 
poetical  soldier,  who  begins  his  poems  by  challenging  the 
critics ;  assuring  them  that  if  any  one  attempts  to  censure 
him,  he  will  only  condescend  to  answer  sword  in  hand. 
Father  Macedo,  a  Portuguese  Jesuit,  having  written  against 
Cardinal  Noris,  on  the  monkery  of  St.  Austin,  it  was  deemed 
necessary  to  silence  both  parties.  Macedo,  compelled  to  re- 
linquish the  pen,  sent  his  adversary  a  challenge,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  chivalry,  appointed  a  place  for  meeting 
in  the  wood  of  Boulogne.  Another  edict  to  forbid  the  duel ! 
Macedo  then  murmured  at  his  hard  fate,  which  would  not 
suffer  him,  for  the  sake  of  St.  Austin,  for  whom  he  had  a 
particular  regard,  to  spill  either  his  ink  or  his  blood. 

Anti,  prefixed  to  the  name  of  the  person  attacked,  was 
once  a  favourite  title  to  books  of  literary  controversy.  With 
a  critical  review  of  such  books  Baillet  has  filled  a  quarto 
volume  ;  yet  such  was  the  abundant  harvest,  that  he  left  con- 
siderable gleanings  for  posterior  industry. 

Anti-Gronovius  was  a  book  published  against  Gronovius, 
by  Kuster.  Perizonius,  another  pugiUst  of  literature,  entered 
into  this  dispute  on  the  subject  of  the  iEs  grave  of  the  an- 
cients, to  which  Kuster  had  just  adverted  at  the  close  of  his 
volume.  What  was  the  consequence  ?  Dreadful ! — Answers 
and  rejoinders  from  both,  in  which  they  bespattered  each 
other  with  the  foulest  abuse.  A  journalist  pleasantly  blames 
this  acrimonious  controversy.  He  says,  "  To  read  tlie  pam- 
phlets of  a  Perizonius  and  a  Kuster  on  the  J^s  grave  of  the 
ancients,  who  would  not  renounce  all  commerce  with  an- 
tiquity ?  It  seems  as  if  an  Agamemnon  and  an  Achillet: 
were  railing  at  each  other.  Who  can  refrain  from  laughter, 
when  one  of  these  commentators  even  points  his  attacks  at 
the  very  name  of  his  adversary  ?     According  to  Kuster,  tiie 


414  LITEBARY  CONTROVERSY. 

name  of  Perizonius  signifies  a  certain  part  of  the  human 
body.  How  is  it  possible,  that  with  such  a  name  he  could 
be  right  concerning  the  ^s  grave  ?  But  does  that  of  Kuster 
promise  a  better  thing,  since  it  signifies  a  beadle ;  a  man  who 
drives  dogs  out  of  churches? — What  madness  is  this  !  " 

(yorneille,  like  our  Dryden,  felt  the  acrimony  of  literaiy  irri- 
tation. To  the  critical  strictures  of  D'Aubignac  it  is  acknowl- 
edged he  paid  the  greatest  attention,  for,  after  this  critic's 
Pratique  du  Theatre  appeared,  his  tragedies  were  more  art- 
fully conducted.  But  instead  of  mentioning  the  critic  with 
due  praise,  he  preserved  an  ungrateful  silence.  This  occa- 
sioned a  quarrel  between  the  poet  and  the  critic,  in  which  the 
former  exhaled  his  bile  in  several  abusive  epigrams,  Avhicli 
have,  fortunately  for  his  credit,  not  been  preserved  in  his 
works. 

The  lively  Voltaire  could  not  resist  the  charm  of  abusing 
his  adversaries.  We  may  smile  when  he  calls  a  blockhead,  a 
blockhead ;  a  dotard,  a  dotard ;  but  when  he  attacks,  for  a 
difference  of  opinion,  the  morals  of  another  man,  our  sensi- 
bility is  alarmed.  A  higher  tribunal  than  that  of  criticism  is 
to  decide  on  the  actions  of  men. 

There  is  a  certain  disguised  mahce,  which  some  writers 
have  most  unfairly  employed  in  characterizing  a  contemporary. 
Bui-net  called  Prior,  one  Prior.  In  Bishop  Parker's  History 
of  his  Own  Times,  an  innocent  reader  may  start  at  seeing 
the  celebrated  Marvell  described  as  an  outcast  of  society  ;  an 
infamous  libeller ;  and  one  whose  talents  were  even  more 
despicable  than  his  person.  To  such  lengths  did  the  hatred  of 
party,  united  with  personal  rancour,  carry  this  bishop,  who 
was  himself  the  worst  of  time-servers.  He  was,  however, 
amply  repaid  by  the  keen  wit  of  Marvell  in  '  The  Rehearsal 
Transposed,'  which  may  still  be  read  with  delight,  as  an  ad- 
mirable effusion  of  banter,  wit,  and  satire.  Le  Clerc,  a  cool 
ponderous  Greek  critic,  quarrelled  with  Boileau  about  a  pas- 
sage in  Longinus,  and  several  years  afterwards,  in  revising 
Moreri's  Dictionary,  gave  a  short  sarcastic  notice  of  the  poet's 


LITERARY   BLUNDERS.  415 

brother  ;  in  which  he  calls  him  the  elder  brother  of  him  who 
has  written  the  book  entitled  '■'■  Satires  of  Mr.  Boileaxi  Des- 
preauxl" — the  works  of  the  modern  Horace  which  were 
then  delighting  Europe,  he  calls,  with  simple  impudence,  "  a 
book  entitled  Satires  !  " 

The  works  of  Homer  produced  a  controversy,  both  long 
and  vu'ulent,  amongst  the  wits  of  France  ;  this  literary  (|u;ir- 
rel  is  of  some  note  in  the  annals  of  literature,  since  it  has 
produced  two  valuable  books;  La  Motte's  "  Reflexions  sur  la 
Critique,"  and  Madame  Dacier's  "  Des  Causes  de  la  Corrup- 
tion du  Gout."  La  Motte  wrote  with  feminine  delicacy,  and 
Madame  Dacier  like  a  University  pedant.  "At  length,  by 
the  efforts  of  Valincour,  the  friend  of  art,  of  artists,  and  of 
peace,  the  contest  was  terminated."  Both  parties  were  for- 
midable in  number,  and  to  each  he  made  remonstrances,  and 
applied  reproaches.  La  Motte  and  Madame  Dacier,  the  op- 
posite leaders,  were  convinced  by  his  arguments,  made  recip- 
rocal concessions,  and  concluded  a  peace.  The  treaty  was 
formally  ratified  at  a  dinner,  given  on  the  occasion  by  a 
Madame  De  Stael,  who  represented  "  Neuti-ality."  Liba- 
tions Avere  poured  to  the  memory  of  old  Homer,  and  the 
parties  were  reconciled. 


LITERARY  BLUNDERS. 

When  Dante  published  his  "  Inferno,"  the  simplicity  of 
the  age  accepted  it  as  a  true  narrative  of  his  descent  into 
hell. 

When  the  Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  was  first  published, 
it  occasioned  a  pleasant  mistake.  This  political  romance  rej)- 
resents  a  perfect,  but  visionary  republic,  in  an  island  supposed 
to  have  been  newly  discovered  in  America.  "As  this  was 
the  age  of  discovery,"  says  Granger,  "  the  learned  BudiEus, 
and  others,  took  it  for  a  genuine  history ;  and  considv^red  it  as 


416  LITERARY   BLUNDERS. 

highly  expedient,  that  missionaries  should  be  sent  thither,  in 
order  to  convert  so  wise  a  nation  to  Christianity." 

It  was  a  long  while  after  publication  that  many  readers 
were  convinced  that  Gulliver's  Travels  were  fictitious. 

But  the  most  singular  blunder  was  produced  by  the  ingen- 
ious "  Hermippus  Redivivus  "  of  Dr.  Campbell,  a  curious  ban- 
ter on  the  hermetic  plulosophy,  and  the  universal  medicine ; 
but  the  grave  h'ony  is  so  closely  kept  up,  that  it  deceived  for 
a  length  of  time  the  most  learned.  His  notion  of  the  art  of 
prolonging  life,  by  inhaling  the  breath  of  young  women,  was 
eagerly  credited.  A  physician,  who  himself  had  composed  a 
treatise  on  health,  was  so  influenced  by  it,  that  he  actually 
took  lodgings  at  a  female  boarding-school,  that  he  might 
never  be  without  a  constant  supply  of  the  breath  of  young 
ladies.  Mr.  Thicknesse  seriously  adopted  the  project.  Dr. 
Kippis  acknowledged  that  after  he  had  read  the  work  in  his 
youth,  the  reasonings  and  the  facts  left  him  several  days  in  a 
kind  of  fairy  land.  I  have  a  copy  wdth  manuscript  notes  by 
a  learned  physician,  who  seems  to  have  had  no  doubts  of  its 
veracity.  After  all,  the  intention  of  the  work  was  long 
doubtful ;  till  Dr.  Campbell  assured  a  friend  it  was  a  mere 
jeu-d'esprit ;  that  Bayle  was  considered  as  standing  without 
a  rival  in  the  art  of  treating  at  large  a  difficult  subject,  with- 
out discovering  to  which  side  his  own  sentiments  leaned: 
Campbell  had  read  more  uncommon  books  than  most  men, 
and  wished  to  rival  Bayle,  and  at  the  same  time  to  give 
many  curious  matters  little  known. 

Palavicini,  in  his  History  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  to  con- 
fer an  honour  on  M.  Lansac,  ambassador  of  Charles  IX.  to 
that  council,  bestows  on  him  a  collar  of  the  order  of  Saint 
Esprit ;  but  which  order  was  not  instituted  till  several  years 
allerwards  by  Henry  III.  A  similar  voluntary  blunder  is 
that  of  Surita,  in  his  Annates  de  la  Corona  de  Aragon.  This 
writer  represents,  in  the  battles  he  describes,  many  persons 
who  were  not  present ;  and  tliis,  merely  to  confer  honour  ou 
some  particular  families. 


LITERAR\    BLUXDKRS.  417 

Fabiani,  quoting  a  French  narrative  of  travels  in  Italj, 
took  for  the  name  of  the  author  the  words,  found  at  the  eiid 
of  the  title-page,  Enrichi  de  deux  Listes  ;  that  is,  "  Enriched 
with  two  lists : "  on  this  he  observes,  "  that  Mr.  Enriched 
with  two  lists  has  not  failed  to  do  that  justice  to  Ciampini 
which  he  merited."  The  abridgers  of  Gesner's  Bibliotheca 
ascribe  the  romance  of  Amadis  to  one  Aeuerdo  Olvido ; 
Remembrance,  Oblivion ;  mistaking  the  French  translator's 
Spanish  motto  on  the  title-page,  for  the  name  of  the  author. 

D'Aquin,  the  French  king's  physician,  in  his  Memoir  on 
the  Preparation  of  Bark,  takes  Manfissa,  which  is  the  title 
of  the  Appendix  to  the  History  of  Plants,  by  Johnstone,  for 
the  name  of  an  author,  and  who,  he  says,  is  so  extremely 
rare,  that  he  only  knows  him  by  name. 

Lord  Bohngbroke  imagined,  that  in  those  famous  verses, 
beginning  with  Excudent  alii,  &c.,  Virgil  attributed  to  the 
Romans  the  glory  of  having  surpassed  the  Greeks  in  histori- 
cal composition  :  according  to  his  idea,  those  Roman  historians 
whom  Virgil  preferred  to  the  Grecians  were  Sallust,  Livy, 
and  Tacitus.  But  Virgil  died  before  Livy  had  written  his 
history,  or  Tacitus  was  born. 

An  honest  friar,  who  compiled  a  church  history,  has  placed 
m  the  class  of  ecclesiastical  writers  Guarini,  the  Italian  poet, 
on  the  faith  of  the  title  of  his  celebrated  amorous  pastoral, 
11  Pastor  Fido,  "  The  Faithful  Shepherd  ;  "  our  good  father 
imagined  that  the  chai-acter  of  a  curate,  vicar,  or  bishop,  was 
represented  in  this  work. 

A  blunder  has  been  recorded  of  the  monks  in  the  dark 
ages,  which  was  likely  enough  to  happen  when  their  igno- 
rance was  so  dense.  A  rector  of  a  parish  going  to  law  with 
Ids  parishioners  about  paving  the  church,  quoted  this  authority 
from  St.  Peter — Paveant  illi,  non  paveam  ego  ;  which  he  con- 
strued, They  are  to  pave  the  church,  not  I.  This  was  allowed 
to  be  good  law  by  a  judge,  himself  an  ecclesiastic  too! 

One  of  the  grossest  literary  blunders  of  modern  times  is 
that  of  the  late  Gilbert  Wakefield,  in   his  edition  cf  Pope. 

vor..  I  27 


413  LITERARY   BLUNDERS. 

He  there  takes  the  well-known  "  Song  by  a  Person  of  Quali- 
ty," which  is  a  piece  of  ridicule  on  the  glittering  tuneful  non- 
sense of  certain  poets,  as  a  serious  composition.  In  a  most 
copious  commentary,  he  proves  that  every  line  seems  uncon- 
nected with  its  brothers,  and  that  the  whole  reflects  disgrace 
on  its  author !  A  circumstance  which  too  evidently  shows 
how  necessary  the  knowledge  of  modern  literary  history 
is  to  a  modern  commentator,  and  that  those  who  are  pro- 
found in  verbal  Greek  are  not  the  best  critics  on  Enghsh 
writers. 

The  Abbe  Bizot,  the  author  of  the  medalhc  history  of  Hol- 
land, fell  into  a  droll  mistake.  There  is  a  medal,  struck  when 
Philip  II.  set  forth  his  invincible  Armada,  on  which  are  rep- 
resented the  King  of  Spain,  the  P.mperor,  the  Pope,  Elec- 
tors, Cardinals,  &c.,  with  their  eyes  covered  with  a  bandage, 
and  bearing  for  inscription  tliis  fine  verse  of  Luci'etius  : — 

0  ccecas  liorainum  menteis !     0  pectora  casca! 

The  Abbe,  prepossessed  with  the  prejudice  that  a  nation  per- 
secuted by  the  Pope  and  his  adherents  could  not  represent 
them  without  some  insult,  did  not  examine  with  sufficient 
care  the  ends  of  the  bandages  which  covered  the  eyes  and 
waved  about  the  heads  of  the  personages  represented  on  tins 
medal :  he  rashly  took  them  for  asses'  ears,  and  as  such  they 
are  engraved ! 

Mabillon  has  preserved  a  curious  literary  blunder  of  some 
pious  Spaniards,  who  applied  to  the  Pope  for  consecrating  a 
day  in  honour  of  Saint  Viar.  His  holiness,  in  the  volumi- 
nous catalogue  of  his  saints,  was  ignorant  of  this  one.  The 
only  proof  brought  forward  for  his  existence  was  this  in- 
scription : — 

S.   VIAR. 

An  antiquary,  however,  hindered  one  more  festival  in  the 
Cathohc  calendar,  by  convincing  them  that  these  letters  were 
only  the  remains  of  an  inscription  erected  for  an  ancient  sur- 
veyor of  the  roads  ;  and  he  read  their  saintsliip  thus  : — 


LITERARY  BLUNDERS.  419 

PR^FECTUS    VIARUM. 

Maffei,  in  his  comparison  between  IMedals  and  Inscriptions, 

detects  a  literary  blunder  in  Spon,  who,  meeting  with  this 

inscription, 

Maximo  VI  Consule 

takes  the  letters  VI  for  numerals,  which  occasions  a  strange 
anachronism.  They  are  only  contractions  of  Viro  Elastri 
—VI. 

As  absurd  a  blunder  was  this  of  Dr.  Stukeley  on  the  coins 
of  Carausius  ;  finding  a  battered  one  with  a  defaced  inscrip- 
tion of 

FORTVNA    AVG. 

he  read  it 

ORIVNA    AVG. 

And  sagaciously  interpreting  this  to  be  the  wife  of  Carausius, 
makes  a  new  personage  start  up  in  history ;  he  contrives 
even  to  give  some  theoretical  Memoirs  of  the  August 
Orinna  ! 

Father  Sirmond  was  of  opinion  that  St.  Ursula  and  her 
eleven  thousand  Virgins  were  all  created  out  of  a  blunder. 
In  some  ancient  MS.  they  found  St.  Ursula  et  Undecimilla 
V.  M.  meaning  St.  Ursula  and  Undecimilla,  Virgin  Martyrs  ; 
imagining  that  Undecimilla  with  the  V.  and  M.  which  fol- 
lowed, was  an  abbreviation  for  Undecem  MiUia  Marfyrum 
Virginum,  they  made  out  of  Two  Virgins  the  whole  Eleven 
Thousand  ! 

Pope,  in  a  note  on  Measure  for  Measure,  informs  us,  that 
its  story  was  taken  from  Cinthio's  Novels,  Dec.  8,  Nov.  5. 
That  is,  Decade  8,  Novel  5.  The  critical  Warburton,  in  his 
edition  of  Shakspeare,  puts  the  words  in  full  length  thus, 
December  8,  November  5. 

When  the  fragments  of  Petronius  made  a  great  noise  in 
the  literary  world,  Meibomius,  an  erudit  of  Lubeck,  read  in 
a  letter  from  another  learned  scholar  from  Bologna,  "  We 
have  here  an  entire  Petronius  ;  I  saw  it  with  mine  own  eyes, 


420  LITEKARY  BLUNDERS. 

and  with  admiration."  Meibomius  in  post-haste  is  on  the 
road,  arrives  at  Bologna,  and  immediately  inquires  for  the 
librarian  Capponi.  He  inquires  if  it  were  true  that  they  had 
at  Bologna  an  entiie  Petronhis?  Capponi  assures  him 
that  it  was  a  thing  which  had  long  been  public.  "  Can  I 
see  this  Petronius  ?  Let  me  examine  it !  " — "  Certainly," 
replies  Capponi,  and  leads  our  erudit  of  Lubeck  to  the  church 
where  reposes  the  body  of  St.  Petronius.  Meibomius  bites 
his  lips,  calls  for  his  chaise,  and  takes  his  flight. 

A  French  translator,  when  he  came  to  a  passage  of  Swift, 
in  which  it  is  said  that  the  Duke  of  Marlboi-ough  broke  an 
officer ;  not  being  acquainted  with  this  Anglicism,  he  trans- 
lated it  roue,  broke  on  a  wheel ! 

Cibber's  play  of  "  Love's  last  Shift "  was  entitled  "  La 
Derniere  Chemise  de  V Amour."  A"  French  writer  of  Con- 
greve's  life  has  taken  his  Mourning  for  a  Morning  Bride, 
and  translated  it  U Epouse  du  Matin. 

Sir  John  Pringle  mentions  his  having  cured  a  soldier  by 
the  use  of  two  quarts  of  Dog  and  Duck  water  daily :  a 
French  translator  specifies  it  as  an  excellent  broth  made  of  a 
duck  and  a  dog!  In  a  recent  catalogue  compiled  by  a 
French  writer  of  Works  on  Natural  History,  he  has  inserted 
the  well-known  "  Essay  on  Irish  Bulls  "  by  the  Edgeworths. 
The  proof,  if  it  required  any,  that  a  Frenchman  cannot 
understand  the  idiomatic  style  of  Shakspeare  appears  in  a 
French  translator,  who  prided  himself  on  giving  a  verbal 
translation  of  our  great  poet,  not  approving  of  Le  Tourneur's 
paraphrastical  version.  He  found  in  the  celebrated  speech 
of  Northumberland  in  Henry  IV. 

Even  such  a  man,  so  faint,  so  spiritless, 
So  dull,  so  dead  in  look,  so  woe-beyone — 

which  he  renders  "  Ainsi  douleur  !  va-t'en  !  " 

The  Abbe  Gregoire  affi^rds  another  striking  proof  of  the 
errors  to  which  foi-eigners  are  liable  when  they  decide  on  the 
language  and  customs  of  another  country.  The  Abbe,  in  the 
excess  of  his  philanthropy,  to  show  to  what  dishonourable 


LITERARY   BLUNDERS.  421 

offices  human  nature  is  degraded,  acquaints  us  that  at  London 
he  observed  a  sign-board,  procUiiming  the  master  as  tuevr  des 
punaises  de  sd  majeste  !  Bug-destroyer  to  his  majesty !  This 
is  no  doubt  the  honest  Mr.  Tiffin,  in  the  Strand  ;  and  the 
idea  which  must  have  occurred  to  the  good  Abbe  was,  that 
his  majesty's  bugs  were  hunted  by  the  said  destroyer,  and 
taken  by  hand — and  thus  human  nature  was  degraded ! 

A  French  writer  translates  the  Latin  title  of  a  treatise  of 
Philo-JudKus  Omnis  bonus  liber  est,  Every  good  man  is  a 
free  man,  by  Tout  livre  est  bon.  It  was  well  for  liim,  ob- 
serves Jortin,  that  he  did  not  hve  within  the  reach  of  the 
Inquisition  which  might  have  taken  this  as  a  reflection  on 
the  Index  Expurgaturius. 

An  English  translator  turned  "  Dieu  defend  I'adultere " 
into  "  God  defends  adultery." — Guthrie,  in  his  translation  of 
Du  Ilalde,  has  "  the  twenty-sixth  day  of  the  new  moon." 
The  whole  age  of  the  moon  is  but  twenty-eight  days.  The 
blunder  arose  from  his  mistaking  the  word  neuvieme  (ninth) 
for  nouvelle  or  neuve  (new). 

The  facetious  Tom  Bro^vn  committed  a  strange  blunder  in 
his  translation  of  GelU's  Circe.  The  word  Starne,  not  aware 
of  its  signification,  he  boldly  rendered  stares,  probably  from 
the  similitude  of  sound ;  the  succeeding  translator  more  cor- 
rectly discovered  Starne  to  be  red-legged  partridges ! 

In  Charles  JI.'s  reign  a  new  collect  was  drawn,  in  which 
a  new  epithet  was  added  to  the  king's  title,  that  gave  great 
offence,  and  occasioned  great  raillery.  He  was  styled  ottr 
most  religious  ling.  Whatever  the  signification  of  religious 
might  be  in  the  Latin  word,  as  importing  the  sacredness  of 
the  king's  person,  yet  in  the  English  language  it  bore  a  sig- 
nification that  was  no  way  applicable  to  the  king.     And  he 

as  asked  by  his  familiar  courtiers,  what  must  the  nation 
think  when  they  heard  him  prayed  for  as  their  most  religious 
king  ? — Literary  blunders  of  this  nature  are  frequently  dis- 
covered in  the  versions  of  good  classical  scholars,  who  would 
make  the  English  servilely  bend  to  the  Latin  and  Greek. 


422  LITERARY  BLUNDERS. 

Even  Milton  has  been  justly  censured  for  his  free  use  of 
Latinisms  and  Grecisms. 

The  blunders  of  modem  antiquaries  on  sepulchral  monu- 
ments are  numerous.  One  mistakes  a  lion  at  a  knight's  feet 
for  a  water-curled  dog  ;  another  could  not  distinguish  censers 
in  the  hands  of  angels  from  Jishiug-nets  ;  tioo  angels  at  a 
lady's  feet  were  counted  as  her  two  cherub-like  babes  ;  and 
another  has  mistaken  a  leopard  and  a  hedgehog  for  a  cat  and 
a  rat !  In  some  of  these  cases,  are  the  antiquaries  or  the 
sculptors  most  ro  be  blamed  ? 

A  hterary  blunder  of  Thomas  Warton  is  a  specimen  of  the 
manner  in  which  a  man  of  genius  may  continue  to  blunder 
with  infinite  ingenuity.  In  an  old  romance  he  finds  these 
lines,  describing  the  duel  of  Saladin  with  Richard  Coeur  de 
Lion : — 

A  Faucon  brode  in  hande  he  bare, 
For  he  thought  he  wolde  thare 
Have  slayne  Richard. 

He  imagines  this  Faucon  brode  means  a  falcon  bird,  or  a 
hawk,  and  that  Saladin  is  represented  with  this  bird  on  his 
fist  to  express  his  contempt  of  his  adversary.  He  supports 
his  conjecture  by  noticing  a  Gothic  picture,  supposed  to  be 
the  subject  of  this  duel,  and  also  some  old  tapestry  of  heroes 
on  horseback  with  hawks  on  their  fists  ;  he  plunges  into 
feudal  times,  when  no  gentlemen  appeared  on  horseback 
without  his  hawk.  After  all  this  curious  erudition,  the  rough 
but  skilful  Ritson  inhumanly  triumphed  by  dissolving  the 
magical  fancies  of  the  more  elegant  Warton,  by  explaining  a 
Faucon  brode  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  broad  faulchion, 
which,  in  a  duel,  was  certainly  more  useful  than  a  bird. 
The  editor  of  the  private  reprint  of  Hentzner,  on  that  writer's 
tradition  respecting  "  The  Kings  of  Denmark  who  reigned 
in  England "  buried  in  the  Temple  Church,  metamorphosed 
the  two  Inns  of  Court,  Gray's  Inn  and  LincohCs  Inn,  into  the 
names  of  the  Danish  Kings,  Gresin  and  Lyconin. 

Bayle  supposes  that  MarceEus  Palingenius,  who  wrote  the 


A  LITERARY   WIFE.  423 

poem  entitled  the  Zodiac,  the  twelve  books  bearing  the  names 
of  the  signs,  from  this  circumstance  assumed  the  title  of  Poeta 
Stellalus.  But  it  appears  that  this  writer  was  an  Italian 
and  a  native  of  Stellada,  a  town  in  the  Ferrarese.  It  is 
probable  that  his  birthplace  originally  produced  the  conceit 
of  the  title  of  his  poem  :  it  is  a  curious  instance  how  a  criti- 
cal conjecture  may  be  led  astray  by  its  own  ingenuity,  when 
ignorant  of  the  real  fact. 


A  LITERARY  WIFE. 

Jlarriagc  is  such  a  rabble  rout, 
That  those  that  are  out,  would  fain  get  in; 
And  those  that  are  in,  would  fain  get  out. 

Chaucer. 

Having  examined  some  literary  bhivders,  we  will  now 
proceed  to  the  subject  of  a  literary  wife,  which  may  happen 
to  prove  one.  A  learned  lady  is  to  the  taste  of  few.  It  is 
however  matter  of  surprise,  that  several  hterary  men  should 
have  felt  such  a  want  of  taste  in  respect  to  "  their  soul's  far 
dearer  part,"  as  Hector  calls  his  Andromache.  The  wives 
of  many  men  of  letters  have  been  dissolute,  ill-humoured, 
slatternly,  and  have  run  into  all  the  frivoUties  of  the  age. 
The  wife  of  the  learned  Budajus  was  of  a  different  char- 
acter. 

How  delightful  is  it  when  the  mind  of  the  female  is  so  hap- 
pily disposed,  and  so  richly  cuhivated,  as  to  participate  in  the 
literary  avocations  of  her  husband  !  It  is  then  truly  that  the 
intercourse  of  tbe  sexes  becomes  the  most  refined  pleasure. 
"What  delight,  for  instance,  must  the  great  Budunis  have 
tasted,  even  in  those  works  which  must  have  been  for  others 
a  most  dreadful  labour!  His  wife  left  him  nothing  to  desire. 
The  frequent  companion  of  his  studies,  she  brought  him  the 
books  he  re([uired  to   his  desk  ;  she  collated  passages,  and 


424  A   LITERARY  WIFE. 

transcribed  quotations  ;  the  same  genius,  the  same  inclination, 
and  the  same  ardour  for  literature,  eminently  appeared  in 
those  two  fortunate  persons.  Far  from  withdrawing  her  hus- 
band from  his  studies,  she  was  sedulous  to  anhnate  him  when 
he  languished.  Ever  at  his  side,  and  ever  assiduous ;  ever 
tvith  some  useful  book  in  her  hand,  she  acknowledged  herself 
to  be  a  most  happy  woman.  Yet  she  did  not  neglect  the 
education  of  eleven  children.  She  and  Budaeus  shared  m 
the  mutual  cares  they  owed  their  progeny.  Budteus  was  not 
insensible  of  his  singular  felicity.  In  one  of  his  letters,  he 
represents  himself  as  married  to  two  ladies  ;  one  of  whom  gave 
him  boys  and  girls,  the  other  was  Philosophy,  who  produced 
books.  He  says  that  in  his  twelve  first  years,  Philosophy 
had  been  less  fruitful  than  marriage  ;  he  had  produced  less 
books  than  children  ;  he  had  laboured  more  corporally  than 
intellectually ;  but  he  hoped  to  make  more  books  than  men. 
"  The  soul  (says  he)  will  be  productive  in  its  turn ;  it  will 
rise  on  the  ruins  of  the  body ;  a  prolific  virtue  is  not  given  at 
the  same  time  to  the  bodily  organs  and  the  pen." 

The  lady  of  Evelyn  designed  herself  the  frontispiece  to  his 
translation  of  Lucretius.  She  felt  the  same  passion  in  her 
own  breast  which  animated  her  husband's,  Avho  has  written 
with  such  various  ingenuity.  Of  Baron  Haller  it  is  recorded 
that  he  inspired  his  wife  and  family  with  a  taste  for  his  dif- 
ferent pursuits.  They  were  usually  employed  in  assisting  his 
literary  occupations  ;  they  transcribed  manuscripts,  consulted 
authors,  gathered  plants,  and  designed  and  coloured  under  his 
eye.  What  a  delightful  family  picture  has  the  younger  Pliny 
given  posterity  in  his  letters !  Of  Calphurnia,  his  Avife,  he 
says,  "  Her  affection  to  me  has  given  her  a  turn  to  books ; 
and  my  compositions,  which  she  takes  a  pleasure  in  reading, 
and  even  getting  by  heart,  are  continually  in  her  hands. 
How  full  of  tender  solicitude  is  she  when  I  am  entering  upon 
any  cause  !  Plow  kindly  does  she  rejoice  with  me  when  it 
is  over  I  While  I  am  pleading,  she  places  persons  to  inform 
her  from  time  to  time   how  I  am  heard,  what   applauses  I 


A  LITERARY   WIFE.  425 

receive,  and  what  success  attends  the  cause.  "When  at  any 
time  I  recite  my  works,  she  conceals  herself  behind  some 
curtain,  and  with  secret  rapture  enjoys  my  praises.  She  sings 
my  verses  to  her  lyre,  with  no  other  master  but  love,  the 
best  instructor,  for  her  guide.  Her  passion  will  increase 
with  our  days,  for  it  is  not  my  youth  nor  my  person,  wliich 
time  gradually  impaii-s,  but  my  reputation  and  my  glory,  of 
which  she  is  enamoured." 

On  the  subject  of  a  literary  wife,  I  must  introduce  to  the 
acquaintance  of  the  reader  Margaret,  Duchess  of  Newcastle. 
She  is  known,  at  least  by  her  name,  as  a  voluminous  writer ; 
for  she  extended  her  literary  productions  to  the  number  of 
twelve  folio  volumes. 

Her  labours  have  been  ridiculed  by  some  wits ;  but  had 
her  studies  been  regulated,  she  would  have  displayed  no  ordi- 
nary genius.  The  Connoisseur  has  quoted  her  poems,  and 
her  verses  have  been  imitated  by  Milton. 

The  duke,  her  husband,  was  also  an  author ;  his  book  on 
horsemanship  still  preserves  his  name.  He  has  likewise 
written  comedies,  and  his  contemporaries  have  not  been  penu- 
rious in  their  eulogiums.  It  is  true  he  was  a  duke.  Shad- 
well  says  of  him,  "  That  he  was  the  greatest  master  of  Avit, 
the  most  exact  observer  of  mankind,  and  the  most  accurate 
judge  of  humour  that  ever  he  knew.*'  The  life  of  the  duke 
is  written  "  by  the  hand  of  his  incomparable  duchess."  It 
was  published  in  liis  lifetime.  This  curious  piece  of  biogra- 
phy is  a  folio  of  197  pages,  and  is  entitled  "The  Life  of  the 
Thrice  Noble,  High,  and  Puissant  Prince,  William  Caven- 
dish." His  titles  then  follow  : — "  Written  by  the  Thrice 
Noble,  Illustrious,  and  Excellent  Princess,  Margaret,  Duchess 
of  Newcastle,  his  wife.  London,  1667."  This  Life  is  dedi- 
cated to  Charles  the  Second  ;  and  there  is  also  prefixed  a 
copious  epistle  to  her  husband  the  duke. 

In  this  epistle  the  character  of  our  Literary  Wife  is  de- 
scribed \\\{\\  all  its  peculiarities. 

"  Certainly,  my  lord,  you  have  had  as  many  enemies  and 


426  A  LITERARY   WIFE. 

as  many  friends  as  ever  any  one  particular  person  had  ;  nor 
do  I  so  much  wonder  at  it,  since  I,  a  woman,  cannot  be  ex- 
empt from  the  malice  and  aspersions  of  spiteful  tongues, 
which  they  cast  upon  my  poor  writings,  some  denying  me  to 
be  the  true  authoress  of  them ;  for  your  grace  remembers 
well,  that  those  books  I  put  out  first  to  the  judgment  of  this 
censorious  age  were  accounted  not  to  be  written  by  a  woman, 
but  that  somebody  else  had  writ  and  published  them  in  my 
name ;  by  which  your  lordship  was  moved  to  prefix  an  epis- 
tle before  one  of  them  in  my  vindication,  wherein  you  assure 
the  world,  upon  your  honour,  that  what  was  written  and 
printed  in  my  name  was  my  own ;  and  I  have  also  made 
known  that  your  lordship  was  my  only  tutor,  in  declaring  to 
me  what  you  had  found  and  observed  by  your  own  experience  ; 
for  I  being  young  when  your  lordship  married  me,  could  not 
have  much  knowledge  of  the  world ;  but  it  pleased  God  to 
command  his  servant  Nature  to  endue  me  with  a  poetical 
and  philosophical  genius,  even  from  my  birth  ;  for  I  did  write 
some  books  in  that  kind  before  I  was  twelve  years  of  age, 
which  for  want  of  good  method  and  order  I  would  never  di- 
vuljie.  But  though  the  world  would  not  believe  that  those 
conceptions  and  fancies  which  I  writ  were  my  own,  but  tran- 
scended my  capacity,  yet  they  found  fault,  that  they  were 
defective  for  want  of  learning,  and  on  the  other  side,  they 
said  I  had  pluckt  feathers  out  of  the  universities  ;  which  was 
a  very  preposterous  judgment.  Truly,  my  lord,  I  confess 
that  for  want  of  scholarship,  I  could  not  express  myself  so 
well  as  otherwise  I  might  have  done  in  those  philosophical 
writings  I  published  first ;  but  after  I  was  returned  with  your 
lordship  into  my  native  country,  and  led  a  retired  country 
life,  I  applied  myself  to  the  reading  of  philosophical  authors, 
on  purpose  to  learn  those  names  and  words  of  art  that  are 
used  in  schools  ;  which  at  first  were  so  hard  to  me,  that  I 
could  not  understand  them,  but  was  fain  to  guess  at  the  sense 
of  them  by  the  whole  context,  and  so  writ  them  down,  as  I 
found  them  in  those  authors ;  at  which  my  readers  did  won- 


A  LITERARY  WIFE.  42? 

der,  and  thought  it  impossible  that  a  woman  could  have  so 
much  learning  and  understanding  in  terms  of  art  and  scholas- 
tical  expressions  ;  so  that  I  and  my  books  are  like  the  old 
apologue  mentioned  in  ^sop,  of  a  father  and  his  son  who  rid 
on  an  ass."  Here  follows  a  long  narrative  of  this  fable,  which 
she  applies  to  herself  in  these  words — "  The  old  man  seeing 
he  cx)u\d  not  please  mankind  in  any  manner,  and  having  re- 
ceived so  many  blemishes  and  aspersions  for  the  sake  of  his 
ass,  was  at  last  resolved  to  drown  him  when  he  came  to  the 
next  bridge.  But  I  am  not  so  passionate  to  burn  my  writ- 
ings for  the  various  humours  of  mankind,  and  for  their  find- 
ing fault ;  since  there  is  nothing  in  this  world,  be  it  the  no- 
blest and  most  commendable  action  whatsoever,  tliat  shall 
escape  blameless.  As  for  my  being  the  true  and  only  auth- 
oress of  them,  your  lordship  knows  best ;  and  my  attending 
servants  are  witness  that  I  have  had  none  but  my  own  thoughts, 
fancies,  and  speculations,  to  assist  me  ;  and  as  soon  as  I  set 
them  down  I  send  them  to  those  that  are  to  transcribe  them, 
and  fit  them  for  the  press  ;  whereof,  since  there  have  been 
several,  and  amongst  them  such  as  only  could  write  a  good 
hand,  but  neither  understood  orthography,  nor  had  any  learn- 
ing, (I  being  then  in  banishment,  with  your  lordship,  and 
not  able  to  maintain  learned  secretaries,)  which  hath  been 
a  great  disadvantage  to  my  poor  works,  and  the  cause 
that  they  have  been  printed  so  false  and  so  full  of  errors  ; 
for  besides  that  I  want  also  skill  in  scholarship  and  true 
writing,  I  did  many  times  not  peruse  the  copies  that 
were  transcribed,  lest  they  should  disturb  my  following 
conceptions ;  by  which  neglect,  as  I  said,  many  errors 
are  slipt  into  my  works,  which,  yet  I  hope,  learned  and 
impartial  men  will  soon  rectify,  and  look  more  upon  the 
sense  than  carp  at  words.  I  have  been  a  student  even 
from  childhood ;  and  since  I  have  been  your  lordship's 
wife  I  have  lived  for  the  most  part  a  strict  and  retired 
life,  as  is  best  known  to  your  lordship ;  and  therefore  my 
censurers  cannot  know  much  of  me,  since  they  have  little  or 


428  A  LITERARY  WIFE. 

no  iicquaintance  with  me.  'Tis  true  I  have  been  a  traveller 
both  before  and  after  I  was  married  to  your  lordship,  and 
some  times  shown  myself  at  your  lordship's  command  in  pub- 
lic places  or  assemblies,  but  yet  I  converse  with  few.  In- 
deed, my  lord,  I  matter  not  the  censures  of  this  age,  but  am 
rather  proud  of  them  ;  for  it  shows  that  my  actions  are  more 
than  ordinary,  and  according  to  the  old  proverb,  it  is  better 
to  be  envied  than  pitied ;  for  I  know  well  that  it  is  merely 
out  of  spite  and  malice,  whereof  this  present  age  is  so  full 
that  none  can  escape  them,  and  they'll  make  no  doubt  to  stain 
even  your  lordship's  loyal,  noble,  and  heroic  actions,  as  well  as 
they  do  mine  ;  though  yours  have  been  of  war  and  fighting, 
mine  of  contemplating  and  writing :  yours  were  performed 
publicly  in  the  field,  mine  privately  in  my  closet ;  yours  had 
many  thousand  eye-Avitnesses  ;  mine  none  but  my  waiting- 
maids.  But  the  great  God,  that  hithei'to  bless'd  both  your 
grace  and  me,  will,  I  question  not,  preserve  both  our  fames 
to  afler-ages. 

"  Your  grace's  honest  wife, 

"  and  humble  servant, 

"  M.  Newcastle." 

The  last  portion  of  this  life,  which  consists  of  the  observa- 
tions and  good  things  which  she  had  gathered  from  the  con- 
versations of  her  husband,  forms  an  excellent  Ana  ;  and 
shows  that  when  Lord  Orford,  in  his  "  Catalogue  of  Noble 
Authors,"  says,  that  "  this  stately  poetic  couple  was  a  picture 
of  foolish  nobility,"  he  writes,  as  he  does  too  often,  with  ex- 
triime  levity.  But  we  must  now  attend  to  the  reverse  of  our 
medal. 

Many  chagrins  may  corrode  the  nuptial  state  of  literary 
men.  Females  who,  prompted  by  vanity,  but  not  by  taste, 
unite  themselves  to  scholars,  must  ever  complain  of  neglect* 
The  inexhaustible  occupations  of  a  library  will  only  present 
to  such  a  most  dreary  solitude.  Such  a  lady  declared  of  her 
learned  husband,  that  she  was  more  jealous  of  his  books  than 


A  LITERARY   WIFE.  429 

his  mistresses.  It  was  probably  while  Glover  was  conipos- 
in"'  his  "  Leonidas,"  that  his  lady  avenged  herself  for  this 
Homeric  inattention  to  her,  and  took  her  flight  with  a  lover. 
It  was  peculiar  to  the  learned  Dacier  to  be  united  to  a 
woman,  his  equal  in  erudition  and  his  superior  in  taste. 
When  she  wrote  in  the  album  of  a  German  traveller  a  verse 
from  Sophocles  as  an  apology  for  her  unwillingness  to  place 
herself  among  his  learned  friends,  that  "  Silence  is  the  fe- 
male's ornament,"  it  was  a  trait  of  her  modesty.  The  learned 
Pasquier  was  coupled  to  a  female  of  a  different  character, 
since  he  tells  us  in  one  of  his  Epigrams  that  to  manage  the 
vociferations  of  his  lady,  he  was  compelled  himself  to  become 
a  vociferator. — "  Unfortunate  wretch  that  I  am,  I  who  am  a 
lover  of  universal  peace  !  But  to  have  peace  I  am  obliged 
ever  to  be  at  war." 

Sir  Thomas  More  was  united  to  a  woman  of  the  harshest 
temper  and  the  most  sordid  manners.  To  soften  the  morose- 
ness  of  her  disposition,  "  he  persuaded  her  to  play  on  the 
lute,  viol,  and  other  instruments,  every  day."  AVhether  it 
was  that  she  had  no  ear  for  music,  she  herself  never  became 
harmonious  as  the  instrument  she  touched.  All  these  ladies 
may  be  considered  as  rather  too  alert  in  thought,  and  too 
spirited  in  action  ;  but  a  tame  cuckoo  bird  who  is  always  re- 
peating the  same  note  must  be  very  fatiguing.  The  lady  of 
Samuel  Clarke,  the  great  compiler  of  books  in  1 680,  whose 
name  was  anagrammatized  to  ^- suck  all  cream,"  alluding  to 
his  indefatigable  labours  in  sucking  all  the  cream  of  every 
other  author,  without  having  any  cream  himself,  is  described 
by  her  husband  as  entertaining  the  most  sublime  conceptions 
of  his  illustrious  compilations.  This  appears  by  her  behaviour. 
He  Bays,  "  that  she  never  rose  from  table  without  making 
lum  a  curtesy,  nor  drank  to  him  without  bowing,  and  that  his 
iPford  was  a  law  to  her." 

I  was  much  surprised  in  looking  over  a  correspondence  of 
the  times,  that  in  1590  the  Bishop  of  Lichfield  and  Coventry, 
writing  to  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury  on  the  subject  of  his  liv- 


430  A   LITERARY   WIFE. 

ing  separate  from  his  countess,  uses  as  one  of  his  argurocnts 
for  their  union  the  following  curious  one,  which  surely  shows 
the  gross  and  cynical  feehng  which  the  fair  sex  excited  even 
among  the  higher  classes  of  society.  The  language  of  this 
good  bishop  is  neither  that  of  truth,  we  hope,  nor  certainly 
that  of  religion. 

"  But  some  will  saye  in  your  Lordship's  behalfe  that  tho 
Countesse  is  a  sharpe  and  bitter  shrewe,  and  therefore  licke 
enough  to  shorten  your  lief,  if  shee  should  kepe  yow  com- 
pany. Indeede,  my  good  Lord,  I  have  heard  some  say  so ; 
but  if  shrewdnesse  or  sharpnesse  may  be  a  juste  cause  of  sep- 
aration between  a  man  and  wiefe,  I  thinck  fewe  men  in 
Englande  would  keepe  their  wives  longe  ;  for  it  is  a  common 
jeste,  yet  trewe  in  some  sense,  that  there  is  but  one  shrewe 
in  all  the  worlde,  and  everee  man  hath  her :  and  so  everee 
man  must  be  ridd  of  his  wiefe  that  wolde  be  ridd  of  a  shrewe." 
It  is  wonderful  this  good  bishop  did  not  use  another  argument 
as  cogent,  and  which  would  in  those  times  be  allowed  as 
something  ,  the  name  of  his  lordship,  Shrewshay,  would 
have  afforded  a  consolatory  pun  / 

The  entertaining  Marville  says  that  the  generality  of  ladies 
married  to  literary  men  are  so  vain  of  the  abilities  and  merit 
of  their  husbands,  that  they  are  frequently  insufferable. 

The  wife  of  Barclay,  author  of  "  The  Argenis,"  considered 
herself  as  the  wife  of  a  demigod.  This  appeared  glaringly 
after  his  death  ;  for  Cardinal  Barberini  having  erected  a 
monument  to  the  memory  of  his  tutor,  next  to  the  tomb  of 
Barclay,  Mrs.  Barclay  was  so  irritated  at  this  that  she  de- 
molished his  monument,  brought  home  his  bust,  and  declared 
that  the  ashes  of  so  great  a  genius  as  her  husband  should 
never  be  placed  beside  a  pedagogue. 

Salmasius's  wife  was  a  termagant ;  Christina  said  she  ad- 
mired his  patience  more  than  his  erudition.  Mrs.  Salmasius 
indeed  considered  herself  as  the  queen  of  science,  because 
her  husband  was  acknowledged  as  sovereign  among  the 
critics.     She  boasted  that  she  had  for  her  husband  the  most 


A  LITERARY   WIFE.  431 

learned  of  all  the  nobles,  and  the  most  noble  of  all  the 
learned.  Our  good  lady  always  joined  the  learned  con- 
ferences which  he  held  in  his  study.  She  spoke  loud,  and 
decided  with  a  tone  of  majesty.  Salmasius  was  mild  in 
conversation,  but  the  reverse  in  his  writings,  for  our  proud 
Xantippe  considered  him  as  acting  beneath  himself  if  he  did 
not  magisterially  call  every  one  names ! 

The  "ivife  of  Rohault,  Avhen  her  husband  gave  lectures  en 
the  philosophy  of  Descartes,  used  to  seat  herself  on  these 
days  at  the  door,  and  refused  admittance  to  every  one 
shabbily  dressed,  or  who  did  not  discover  a  genteel  air. 
So  convinced  was  she  that,  to  be  worthy  of  hearing  the 
lectures  of  her  husband,  it  was  proper  to  appear  fashion- 
able. In  vain  our  good  lecturer  exhausted  himself  in  telling 
her,  that  fortune  does  not  always  give  fine  clothes  to  phi- 
losophers. 

The  ladies  of  Albert  Durer  and  Berghem  were  both 
shrews.  The  wife  of  Durer  compelled  that  gi-eat  genius 
to  the  hourly  drudgery  of  his  profession,  merely  to  gratify 
her  own  sordid  passion :  in  despair,  Albert  ran  away  from 
his  Tisiphone  ;  she  wheedled  him  back,  and  not  long  after- 
wards this  great  artist  fell  a  \'ictim  to  her  furious  disposition. 
Berghem's  wife  would  never  allow  that  excellent  artist  to 
quit  his  occupations  ;  and  she  contrived  an  odd  expedient  to 
detect  his  indolence.  The  artist  worked  in  a  room  above 
her  ;  ever  and  anon  she  roused  him  by  thumping  a  long  stick 
against  the  ceiling,  while  the  obedient  Berghem  answered  by 
stamping  his  foot,  to  satisfy  Mrs.  Berghem  that  he  was  not 
napping. 

^lian  had  an  aversion  to  the  married  state.  Sigoiiius,  a 
learned  and  well  knowm  scholar,  would  never  marry,  and 
alleged  no  inelegant  reason  ;  "  Minerva  and  Venus  could  not 
live  together." 

Matrimony  has  been  considered  by  some  writers  as  a  con- 
dition not  so  well  suited  to  the  circumstances  of  philosophers 
and  men  of  learning.     There  is  a  little  tract  which  professes 


432  A  LITERARY   WIFE. 

to  investigate  the  subject.  It  has  for  title,  De  Matrimonio 
Literati,  an  ccelibem  esse,  an  vero  nubere  conveniat,  i.  e., 
of  the  Marriage  of  a  Man  of  Letters,  witli  an  inquiry 
whether  it  is  most  proper  for  liim  to  continue  a  bachelor, 
or  to  marry  ? 

The  author  alleges  the  great  merit  of  some  women  ;  par- 
ticularly that  of  Gonzaga  the  consort  of  Montefeltro,  duke 
of  Urbino  ;  a  lady  of  such  distinguished  accomphshments, 
that  Peter  Bembus  said,  none  but  a  stupid  man  would  not 
prefer  one  of  her  conversations  to  all  the  formal  meetings 
and  disputations  of  the  philosophers. 

The  ladies  perhaps  will  be  surprised  to  find  that  it  is  a 
question  among  the  learned.  Whether  they  ought  to  marry'i 
and  will  think  it  an  unaccountable  property  of  learning  that 
it  should  lay  the  professors  of  it  under  an  obligation  to  dis- 
regard the  sex.  But  it  is  very  questionable  whether,  in 
return  for  this  want  of  complaisance  in  them,  the  generality 
of  ladies  would  not  prefer  the  beau,  and  the  man  of  fashion. 
However,  let  there  be  Gonzagas,  they  will  find  converts 
enough  to  their  charms. 

The  sentiments  of  Sir  Thomas  BroAvne  on  the  consequences 
of  marriage  are  very  curious,  in  the  second  part  of  his  Re- 
ligio  Medici,  sect.  9.  When  he  wi'Ote  that  work,  he  said,  "  I 
was  never  yet  once,  and  commend  their  resolutions,  who 
never  marry  twice."  He  calls  woman  "  the  rib  and  crooked 
piece  of  man."  He  adds,  "  I  could  be  content  that  we 
might  procreate  like  trees,  without  conjunction,  or  that  there 
were  any  way  to  procreate  the  world  without  this  trivial  and 
vulgar  way."  He  means  the  union  of  sexes,  which  he  de- 
clares, "  is  the  foolishest  act  a  wise  man  commits  in  all  his 
life  ;  nor  is  there  any  thing  that  will  more  deject  his  cooled 
imagination,  when  he  shall  consider  what  an  odd  and  un- 
worthy piece  of  folly  he  hath  committed."  He  afterwards 
declares  he  is  not  averse  to  that  sweet  sex,  but  naturally 
amorous  of  all  that  is  beautiful :  "  I  could  look  a  whole  day 
with  delight  upon  a  handsome  picture,  though  it  be  but  of  a 


A  LITER AEY  WIFE.  433 

horse."  He  afterwards  disserts  very  profoundly  on  the  music 
there  is  in  beauty,  "  and  the  silent  note  which  Cupid  strikes  is 
far  sweeter  than  the  sound  of  an  instrument."  Such  were 
his  sentiments  when  youthful,  and  residing  at  Leyden  ;  Dutch 
philosophy  had  at  first  chilled  tiis  passion  ;  it  is  probable  that 
pasi^ion  afterwards  inflamed  his  philosophy — for  he  married, 
and  had  sons  and  daughters  ! 

Dr.  Cocchi,  a  modern  ItaUan  writer,  but  apparently  a 
cynic  as  old  as  Diogenes,  has  taken  the  pains  of  composing  a 
treatise  on  the  present  subject  enough  to  terrify  the  boldest 
Bachelor  of  Arts !  He  has  conjured  up  every  chimera 
against  the  marriage  of  a  literary  man.  He  seems,  however, 
to  have  drawn  his  disgusting  portrait  from  his  own  country  ; 
and  the  chaste  beauty  of  Britain  only  looks  the  more  lovely 
beside  this  Florentine  wife. 

I  shall  not  retain  the  cynicism  which  has  coloured  such 
revolting  features.  When  at  length  the  doctor  finds  a  woman 
as  all  women  ought  to  be,  he  opens  a  ncAv  spring  of  misfor- 
tunes which  must  attend  her  husband.  He  dreads  one  of  the 
probable  consequences  of  matrimony — progeny,  in  which  we 
must  maintain  the  childi'en  we  beget !  He  thinks  the  father 
gains  nothing  in  his  old  age  from  the  tender  offices  admin- 
istered by  his  own  childi'en  :  he  asserts  these  are  much  better 
performed  by  menials  and  strangers !  The  more  children  he 
has,  the  less  he  can  afford  to  have  servants !  The  mainte- 
nance of  his  chikh-en  wiU  greatly  diminish  his  property ! 
Another  alarming  object  in  marriage  is  that,  by  affinity,  you 
become  connected  with  the  relations  of  the  wife.  The  en- 
vious and  ill-bred  insinuations  of  the  mother,  the  family 
quarrels,  their  poverty  or  their  pride,  all  disturb  the  un- 
happy sage  who  falls  into  the  trap  of  connubial  felicity ! 
But  if  a  sage  has  resolved  to  marry,  he  impresses  on  him 
the  prudential  principle  of  increasing  his  fortune  by  it,  and 
to  remember  his  "  additional  expenses  !•"  Dr.  Cocchi  seems 
to  have  thought  that  a  human  being  is  only  to  live  for  him- 
self;  he  had  neither  a  heart  to  feel,  a  head  to  conceive,  nor 

VOL.  I.  28 


434  DEDICATIONS. 

a  pen  that  could  have  written  one  harmonious  period,  or  one 
beautiful  image !  Bayle,  in  his  article  Raphclengius,  note  B, 
gives  a  singular  specimen  of  logical  subtlety,  in  "  a  reflection 
on  the  consequence  of  marriage."  This  learned  man  was 
imagined  to  have  died  of  grief  for  having  lost  his  wife,  and 
passed  three  years  in  protracted  despair.  What  therefore 
must  we  think  of  an  unhappy  marriage,  since  a  happy  one 
is  exposed  to  such  evils  ?  He  then  shows  that  an  unhappy 
marriage  is  attended  by  beneficial  consequences  to  the  sur- 
vivor. In  this  dilemma,  in  the  one  case,  the  husband  lives 
afraid  his  wife  will  die,  in  the  other  that  she  will  not !  If 
you  love  her,  you  will  always  be  afraid  of  losing  her ;  if  you 
do  not  love  her,  you  will  always  be  afraid  of  not  losing  her. 
Our  satirical  celibataire  is  gored  by  the  horns  of  the  dilemma 
he  has  conjured  up. 

James  Petiver,  a  famous  botanist,  then  a  bachelor,  the 
friend  of  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  in  an  album  signs  his  name  with 
this  designation : — 

"  From  the  Goat  tavern  in  the  Strand,  London, 

Nov.  27.     In  the  34th  year  of  vaj  freedom^ 

A.D.  1697." 


DEDICATIONS. 

Some  authors  excelled  in  this  species  of  literary  artifice. 
The  Italian  Doni  dedicated  each  of  his  letters  in  a  book 
called  La  Libraria,  to  persons  whose  name  began  with  the 
first  letter  of  the  epistle,  and  dedicated  the  whole  collection 
in  another  epistle  ;  so  that  the  book,  which  only  consisted  of 
forty-five  pages,  was  dedicated  to  above  twenty  persons. 
This  is  carrying  literary  mendicity  pretty  high.  Politi,  the 
editor  of  the  Martyrologium  Romanum,  published  at  Rome  in 
1751,  has  improved  on  the  idea  of  Doni;  for  to  the  305  days 
of  the  year  of  this  Martyrology  he  has  prefixed  to  each  an 
epistle  dedicatory.     It  is  fortunate  to  have  a  large  circle  of 


DEDICATIONS.  435 

acquaintance,  though  they  should  not  be  worthy  of  being 
saints.  Galland,  the  translator  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  pre- 
fixed a  dedication  to  each  tale  which  he  gave  ;  had  he  fin- 
ished the  "  one  thousand  and  one,"  he  would  have  surpassed 
even  the  INIartyrologist. 

Mademoiselle  Scudery  tells  a  remarkable  expedient  of  an 
ingenious  trader  in  this  line — One  Rangouze  made  a  collec- 
tion of  letters  which  he  printed  without  numbering  them. 
By  this  means  the  bookbinder  put  that  letter  which  the 
author  ordered  him  first ;  so  that  all  the  persons  to  whom  he 
presented  this  book,  seeing  their  names  at  the  head,  consid- 
ered they  had  received  a  particular  compliment.  An  Itahan 
physician,  having  written  on  Hippocrates's  Aphorisms,  dedi- 
cated each  book  of  his  Commentaries  to  one  of  his  friends, 
and  the  index  to  another ! 

More  than  one  of  our  own  authors  have  dedications  in  the 
same  spirit.  It  was  an  expedient  to  procure  dedicatory  fees : 
for  publishing  books  by  subscription  was  an  art  then  undis- 
covered. One  prefixed  a  different  dedication  to  a  certain 
number  of  printed  copies,  and  addressed  them  to  every  great 
man  he  knew,  who  he  thought  rehshed  a  morsel  of  flattery, 
and  would  pay  handsomely  for  a  coarse  luxury.  Sir  Bal- 
thazar Gerbier,  in  his  "  Counsel  to  Builders,"  has  made  up 
half  the  woi'k  with  forty-two  dedications,  which  he  excuses 
by  the  example  of  Antonio  Perez ;  but  in  these  dedications 
Perez  scatters  a  heap  of  curious  things,  for  he  was  a  very 
universal  genius.  Perez,  once  secretary  of  state  to  Philip 
II.  of  Spain,  dedicates  his  "  Obras,"  first  to  "  Nuestro  sanc- 
tiisirao  Padre,"  and  "Al  Sacro  CoUegio,"  then  follows  one  to 
"  Henry  IV."  and  then  one  still  more  embracing,  "A  Todos." 
Fuller,  in  his  "  Church  History,"  has  with  admirable  contri- 
vance introduced  twelve  title-pages,  besides  the  general  one, 
and  as  many  particular  dedications,  and  no  less  than  fifty  or 
sixty  of  those  by  inscriptions  which  are  addressed  to  his 
benefactors  ;  a  circumstance  which  Ileylin  in  his  severity  did 
not  overlook  ;  for  "  making  his  work  bigger  by  forty  sheets  at 


436  DEDICATIONS. 

the  least ;  and  he  was  so  ambitious  of  the  number  of  his  pa- 
trons, that  having  but  four  leaves  at  the  end  of  his  History, 
he  discovers  a  particular  benefactress  to  inscribe  them  to !  " 
This  unlucky  lady,  the  patroness  of  four  leaves,  HeyKn  com- 
pares to  lioscius  Regulus,  who  accepted  the  consulai*  dignity 
for  that  part  of  the  day  on  which  Cecina  by  a  decree  of  the 
senate  was  degraded  from  it,  which  occasioned  Regulus  to  be 
ridica'ed  by  the  people  all  his  life  after,  as  the  consul  of  half 
a  day. 

The  price  for  the  dedication  of  a  play  was  at  length  fixed, 
from  five  to  ten  guineas  from  the  Revolution  to  the  time  of 
George  I.,  when  it  rose  to  twenty ;  but  sometimes  a  bargain 
was  to  be  struck  when  the  author  and  the  play  were  alike 
indifierent.  Sometimes  the  party  haggled  about  the  price,  or 
the  statue  while  stepping  into  his  niche  would  turn  round  on 
the  author  to  assist  his  invention.  A  patron  of  Peter  Mot- 
teux,  dissatisfied  with  Peter's  colder  temperament,  actually 
composed  the  superlative  dedication  to  himself,  and  completed 
the  misery  of  the  apparent  author  by  subscribing  it  with  liis 
name.  This  circumstance  was  so  notorious  at  the  time,  that 
it  occasioned  a  satirical  dialogue  between  Motteux  and  his 
patron  Heveningham.  The  patron,  in  his  zeal  to  omit  no 
possible  distinction  that  might  attach  to  him,  had  given 
one  cu'cumstance  which  no  one  but  himself  could  have 
known. 

Patron. 

I  must  confess  I  was  to  blame, 
That  one  particular  to  name; 
The  rest  could  never  have  been  known 
/  made  the  style  so  like  thy  own. 

Poet. 
I  beg  your  pardon,  Sir,  for  that. 

Patkon. 

Why  d e  what  would  you  be  at? 

I  iprit  below  myself,  you  sot ! 
Avoiding  figures,  tropes,  what  not; 


DEDICATIONS.  437 

For  fear  I  should  ni_y  fiincy  raise 
Above  the  level  of  Uty  jdays  ! 

Warton  notices  the  common  practice,  about  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  of  an  author's  dedicating  a  work  at  once  to  a  num- 
ber of"  the  nobility.  Cliapman's  Translation  of  Homer  has 
sixteen  sonnets  addressed  to  lords  and  ladies.  Henry  Lock, 
in  a  collection  of  two  hundi'ed  religious  sonnets,  mingles  with 
6uch  heavenly  works  the  terrestrial  composition  of  a  number 
of  sonnets  to  his  noble  patrons  ;  and  not  to  multiply  more 
instances,  our  great  poet  Spenser,  in  compUance  with  this 
disgraceful  custom,  or  rather  in  obedience  to  the  estabUshed 
tyranny  of  patronage,  has  prefixed  to  the  Faery  Queene 
fifteen  of  these  adulatory  pieces,  which  in  every  respect  are 
the  meanest  of  his  compositions.  At  tliis  period  all  men,  as 
well  as  writers,  looked  up  to  the  peers,  as  on  beings  on  whose 
smiles  or  fro^\'ns  all  sublunary  good  and  evil  depended.  At 
a  much  later  period,  Elkanah  Settle  sent  copies  round  to  the 
chief  party,  for  he  wrote  for  both  parties,  accompanied  by  ad- 
dresses to  extort  pecuniary  presents  in  return.  He  had  lat- 
terly one  standard  Elegy,  and  one  Epithalamium,  printed  off 
with  blanks,  which  by  ingeniously  filling  up  with  the  printed 
names  of  any  great  person  who  died  or  was  married,  no  one 
who  was  going  out  of  life  or  was  entering  into  it  could  pass 
scot-free. 

One  of  the  most  singular  anecdotes  respecting  Dedica- 
tions in  English  bibliography,  is  that  of  the  Polyglot  bible 
of  Dr.  Castell.  Cromwell,  much  to  his  honour,  patronized 
that  great  labour,  and  allowed  the  paper  to  be  imported  free 
of  all  duties,  both  of  excise  and  custom.  It  was  published 
under  the  protectorate,  but  many  copies  had  not  been  disposed 
of  ere  Charles  II.  ascended  the  throne.  Dr.  Castell  had 
dedicated  the  work  gratefully  to  Oliver,  by  mentioning  him 
with  peculiar  respect  in  the  preface,  but  he  wavered  with 
Richard  Cromwell.  At  the  Restoration,  he  cancelled  the 
last  two  leaves,  and  supplied  their  places  with  three  others, 
which   softened    down    the    republican    strains,    and    blotted 


438  DEDICATIONS. 

Oliver's  name  out  of  the  book  of  life  !  The  differences  in 
what  are  now  called  the  republican  and  the  loyal  copies  have 
amused  the  curious  collectors ;  and  the  fonner  being  very 
scarce,  are  most  sought  after.  I  have  seen  the  republican. 
In  the  loyal  copies  the  patrons  of  the  work  are  mentioned,  but 
their  titles  are  essentially  changed  ;  Serenissimus,  lllustrissi- 
7mis,  and  Honoratissimus,  were  epithets  that  dared  not  show 
themselves  under  the  levelling  influence  of  the  great  fanatic 
republican. 

It  is  a  curious  literary  folly,  not  of  an  individual  but  of  the 
Spanish  nation,  who,  w^hen  the  laws  of  Castile  were  reduced 
into  a  code  under  the  reign  of  Alfonso  X.  surnamed  the 
Wise,  di\-ided  the  work  into  seven  volumes  :  that  they  might 
be  dedicated  to  the  seven  letters  which  formed  the  name  of  his 
majesty ! 

Never  was  a  gigantic  baby  of  adulation  so  crammed  with 
the  soft  pap  of  Dedications  as  Cardinal  Richelieu.  French 
flattery  even  exceeded  itself. — Among  the  vast  number  of 
very  extraordinary  dedications  to  this  man,  in  which  the  Di- 
vinity itself  is  disrobed  of  its  attributes  to  bestow  them  on 
this  miserable  creature  of  vanity,  I  suspect  that  even  the 
following  one  is  not  the  most  blasphemous  he  received. 
"Who  has  seen  your  face  without  being  seized  by  those 
softened  terrors  which  made  the  prophet  shudder  when  God 
showed  the  beams  of  his  glory  !  But  as  he  whom  they  dared 
not  to  approach  in  the  burning  bush,  and  in  the  noise  of 
thunders,  appeared  to  them  sometimes  in  the  freshness  of  the 
zephyrs,  so  the  softness  of  your  august  countenance  dissipates 
at  the  same  time,  and  changes  into  dew  the  small  vapours 
which  cover  its  majesty."  One  of  these  herd  of  dedicators, 
after  the  death  of  Richelieu,  suppressed  in  a  second  edition 
his  hyperbolical  panegyric,  and,  as  a  punishment  to  himself, 
dedicated  the  work  to  Jesus  Christ ! 

The  same  taste  characterizes  our  own  dedications  in  the 
reigns  of  Charles  II.  and  James  II.  The  great  Dryden  has 
carried  it  to  an  excessive  height ;  and  nothing  is  more  usual 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DESCRIPTIVE  POEMS.  4;j9 

than  lo  compare  the  patron  with  the  Divinily — and  at  times 
a  fair  inference  may  be  drawn  that  the  former  was  more  in 
the  author's  mind  than  God  himself!     A  Welsh  bishop  made 

an  apology  to  James  I.   for  preferring  the  Deity -to  hia 

Majesty  !  Dryden's  extravagant  dedications  were  the  vices 
of  the  time  more  than  of  the  man  ;  they  were  loaded  with 
flattery,  and  no  disgrace  was  annexed  to  such  an  exercise  of 
men's  talents ;  the  contest  being  who  should  go  farthest  in 
the  most  graceful  way,  and  with  the  best  turns  of  expression. 
An  ingenious  dedication  was  contrived  by  Sir  Simon  Degge, 
who  dedicated  "  the  Parson's  Counsellor  "  to  Woods,  Bishop 
of  Lichfield,  with  this  intention.  Degge  highly  complimented 
the  Bishop  on  having  most  nobly  restored  the  church,  which 
had  been  demolished  in  the  civil  wars,  and  was  rebuilt  but 
left  unfinished  by  Bishop  Hacket.  At  the  time  he  wrote  the 
dedication,  AVoods  had  not  turned  a  single  stone,  and  it  is 
said,  that  much  against  his  will  he  did  something,  from  having 
been  so  publicly  reminded  of  it  by  this  ironical  dedication 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DESCRIPTIVE   POEMS. 

The  "  Botanic  Garden  "  once  appeared  to  open  a  new 
route  through  the  trodden  groves  of  Parnassus.  The  poet, 
to  a  prodigahty  of  Imagination,  united  all  the  minute  accu- 
racy of  Science.  It  is  a  highly  repolished  labour,  and  was 
in  the  mind  and  in  the  hand  of  its  author  for  twenty  years  be- 
fore its  first  publication.  The  excessive  polish  of  the  verse  has 
appeared  too  high  to  be  endured  throughout  a  long  composi- 
tion ;  it  is  certain  that,  in  poems  of  length,  a  versification, 
which  is  not  too  florid  for  lyrical  composition,  will  weary  by 
its  brilliance.  Darwin,  inasmuch  as  a  rich  philosophical  fancy 
constitutes  a  poet,  possesses  the  entire  art  of  poetry ;  no  one 
h;u3  carried  the  curious  mechanism  of  verse  and  the  artificial 
magic  of  poetical  diction  to  a  higher  perfection.     His  volcanic 


440  PHILOSOPHICAL  DESCRIPTIVE   POEMS. 

head  flamed  with  imagination,  but  his  torpid  heart  slept  uii' 
awakened  by  passion.  His  standard  of  poetry  is  by  much  too 
Hmited  ;  he  supposes  that  the  essence  of  pcetry  is  something 
of  which  a  painter  can  make  a  picture.  A  picturesque  verse 
was  with  him  a  verse  completely  poetical.  But  the  language 
of  the  passions  has  no  connection  with  this  principle ;  in 
truth,  what  he  delineates  as  poetry  itself,  is  but  one  of  its 
provinces.  Deceived  by  his  illusive  standard,  he  has  com- 
posed a  poem  which  is  perpetually  fancy,  and  never  passion. 
Hence  his  processional  splendour  fatigues,  and  his  descriptive 
ingenuity  comes  at  length  to  be  deficient  in  novelty,  and  all 
the  miracles  of  art  cannot  supply  us  with  one  touch  of  nature. 

Descriptive  poetry  should  be  relieved  by  a  skilful  inter- 
njixture  of  passages  addressed  to  the  heart  as  well  as  to  the 
imagination  :  uniform  description  satiates  ;  and  has  been  con- 
sidered as  one  of  the  inferior  branches  of  poetry.  Of  this 
both  Thomson  and  Goldsmith  were  sensible.  In  their  beau- 
tiful descriptive  poems  they  knew  the  art  of  animating  the 
pictures  of  Fancy  with  the  glow  of  Sentiment. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  originality  of  Darwin's 
poem,  it  has  been  preceded  by  others  of  a  congenial  disposi- 
tion. Brookes's  poem  on  "  Universal  Beauty,"  published 
about  1735,  presents  us  with  the  very  model  of  Darwin's 
versification  :  and  the  Latin  poem  of  De  la  Croix,  in  1727, 
entitled  "  Connubia  Florum''  with  his  subject.  There  also 
exists  a  race  of  poems  which  have  hitherto  been  confined  to 
one  object,  which  the  poet  selected  from  the  works  of  nature, 
to  embellish  with  all  the  splendour  of  poetic  imagination.  I 
have  collected  some  titles. 

Perhaps  it  is  Homer,  in  his  battle  of  the  Frogs  and  Mice, 
and  Virgil  in  the  poem  on  a  Gnat,  attributed  to  him,  who 
have  given  birth  to  these  lusory  poems.  The  Jesuits,  par- 
ticularly when  they  composed  in  Latin  verse,  were  partial  to 
such  subjects.  There  is  a  little  poem  on  Gold,  by  P.  Le 
Fevre,  distinguished  for  its  elegance ;  and  Brumoy  has 
given  the  Art  of  making  Glass  ;  in  which  he  has  described 


rHlLOSOl'HICAL   DESCRIPTIVE    POEMS.  44 1 

its  various  productions  with  equal  felicity  and  knowledge. 
P.  Vaniere  has  written  on  Pigeons,  Du  Cerceau  on  Butter- 
Hies.  The  success  wliich  attended  these  productions  pro- 
duced numerous  imitations,  of  which  several  were  favourably 
received.  Vaniere  composed  three  on  the  Grape,  the  Vin- 
tage, and  the  Kitchen  Garden.  Another  poet  selected 
Oranges  for  his  tlieme  ;  others  have  chosen  for  their  sub 
jects,  Paper,  Birds,  and  fresh-water  Fish.  Tarillon  has  in- 
flamed his  imagination  with  gunpoivder ;  a  milder  genius, 
delighted  with  the  oaten  pipe,  sang  of  Sheep  ;  one  who  was 
more  pleased  witli  another  kind  of  pipe,  has  written  on  7h- 
hacco  ;  aii<l  a  droll  genius  wrote  a  poem  on  Asses.  Two 
writers  liave  formed  didjictic  poems  on  the  Art  of  Enigmas^ 
and  on  Ships. 

Others  have  written  on  moral  subjects-  Brumo}"  lia^ 
painted  the  Passions,  with  a  variety  of  imagery  and  vi- 
vacity of  description  ;  P.  Meyer  has  disserted  on  Anger  ; 
Tarillon,  like  our  Stillingfleet,  on  the  Art  of  Coni-ersation  ; 
and  a  lively  writer  has  discussed  the  subjects  of  Humour  and 
Wit. 

Giannetazzi,  an  Italian  Jesuit,  celebrated  for  his  Latin 
poetry,  has  composed  two  volumes  of  poems  on  Fishing  and 
Navigation.  Fracastor  has  written  delicately  on  an  indel- 
icate subject,  his  Syphilis.  Le  Brun  wrote  a  delectable 
poem  on  Sweetmeats ;  another  writer  on  Mineral  Waters, 
and  a  third  on  Printing.  Vida  pleases  with  his  Silk-tooi-ms, 
and  his  Chess ;  Buchanan  is  ingenious  with  the  Sphere. 
Malapert  has  aspired  to  catch  the  Winds  ;  the  philosophic 
lluet  amused  himself  with  Salt,  and  again  with  7Wi.  The 
Gardens  of  Rapin  is  a  finer  poem  than  critics  generally  can 
write ;  Quillet's  Callipedia,  or  Art  of  getting  handsome 
Children,  has  been  translated  by  Rowe  ;  and  Du  Fresnoy 
at  length  gratifies  the  comioisseur  with  his  poem  on  Paint- 
ing, by  the  embellishments  which  his  verses  have  received 
from  the  poetic  diction  of  Mason,  and  the  commentary  of 
Reynolds. 


442  PAMPHLETS. 

This  list  might  be  augmented  with  a  few  of  our  own  poets, 
and  there  still  remain  some  virgin  themes  which  only  require 
to  be  touched  by  the  hand  of  a  true  poet.  In  the  "  Memoirs 
of  Trevoux,"  they  observe,  in  their  review  of  the  poem  on 
Gold,  "  That  poems  of  this  kind  have  the  advantage  of  in- 
structing us  very  agreeably.  All  that  has  been  most  remark- 
ably said  on  the  subject  is  united,  compressed  in  a  luminous 
order,  and  dressed  in  all  the  agi'eeable  graces  of  poetry. 
Such  wi-iters  have  no  little  dilliculties  to  encounter :  the 
style  and  expression  cost  dear ;  and  still  more  to  give  to  an 
arid  topic  an  agreeable  form,  and  to  elevate  the  subject  vnih- 
out  falling  into  another  extreme. — In  the  other  kinds  of 
poetry  the  matter  assists  and  prompts  genius ;  here  we  must 
possess  an  abundance  to  display  it." 


PAMPHLETS. 

Mtles  Davis's  "  Icon  Libellordm,  or  a  Critical  His- 
tory of  Pamphlets,"  affords  some  curious  information  ;  and  as 
this  is  a  pamphlet-vQVi^mg  age,  I  shall  give  a  sketch  of  its 
contents. 

The  author  observes :  "  From  Pamphlets  may  be  learned 
the  genius  of  the  age,  the  debates  of  the  learned,  the  follies 
of  the  ignorant,  the  bevues  of  government,  and  the  mistakes 
of  the  courtiers.  Pamphlets  furnish  beans  with  their  airs, 
coquettes  with  their  charms.  Pampldets  are  as  modish 
ornaments  to  gentlewomen's  toilets  as  to  gentlemen's  pockets; 
they  carry  reputation  of  wit  and  learning  to  all  that  make 
them  their  companions  ;  the  poor  find  their  account  in  stall- 
keeping  and  in  hawking  them ;  the  rich  find  in  them  their 
shortest  way  to  the  secrets  of  church  and  state.  There  is 
scarce  any  class  of  people  but  may  think  themselves  inter- 
ested enough  to  be  concerned  with  what  is  published  ui 
pamphlets,  either  as  to  their  private  instruction,  curiosity, 


PAMPHLETS.  443 

and  reputation,  or  to  the  public  advantage  and  credit ;  with 
all  which  both  ancient  and  modern  pam|)hlets  are  too  often 
over  familiar  and  free. —  In  short,  with  pamphlets  the  book- 
sellers and  stationers  adorn  the  gaiety  of  shop-gazing.  Hence 
accrues  to  grocers,  apothecaries,  and  chandlers,  good  furni- 
ture, and  sup[)lies  to  necessary  retreats  and  natural  occasions. 
In  pamphlets  lawyers  will  meet  with  their  chicanery,  physi- 
cians with  their  cant,  divines  with  their  Shibboleth.  Pam- 
phlets become  more  and  more  daily  amusements  to  the 
curious,  idle,  and  in<juisitive  ;  pastime  to  gallants  and  co- 
quettes ;  chat  to  the  talkative ;  catch-words  to  informers ; 
fuel  to  the  envious ;  poison  to  the  unfortunate ;  balsam  to 
the  wounded ;  employ  to  the  lazy  ;  and  fabulous  materials  tc 
romancers  and  novelists." 

This  author  sketches  the  origin  and  rise  of  pamphlets. 
He  deduces  them  from  the  short  writings  published  by  the 
Jewish  Rabbins ;  various  little  pieces  at  the  time  of  the  first 
pi-0])agation  of  Christianity  ;  and  notices  a  certain  pamphlet 
which  was  pretended  to  have  been  the  composition  of  Jesus 
(!^hrist,  throwTi  from  heaven,  and  picked  up  by  the  archangel 
Michael  at  the  entrance  of  Jerusalem.  It  was  copied  by  the 
priest  Leora,  and  sent  about  from  priest  to  priest,  till  Pop«. 
Zachary  ventured  to  pronounce  it  a  forgery.  He  notices 
several  such  extraordmary  publications,  many  of  which  pro- 
duced as  extraordinary  effects. 

He  proceeds  in  noticing  the  first  Arian  and  Popish  pam- 
[ddets,  or  rather  libels,  i.  e.  little  books,  as  he  distinguishes 
them.  He  relates  a  curious  anecdote  respecting  the  forgeries 
of  the  monks.  Archbishop  Usher  detected  in  a  manuscript 
of  St.  Patrick's  life,  pretended  to  have  been  found  at  Louvain, 
as  an  original  of  a  very  remote  date,  several  passages  taken, 
with  little  alteration,  from  his  own  writings. 

The  following  notice  of  our  immortal  Pope  I  cannot  pass 
over :  "Another  class  of  pamphlets  writ  by  Roman  Catholics 
is  that  of  Poems,  written  chiefly  by  a  Pope  himself,  a  gentle- 
man of  that  name.    He  passed  always  amongst  most  of  his  ac 


444  PAMPHLETS. 

qiiaintance  for  what  is  commonly  called  a  TThig  ;  for  it  seems 
the  Roman  politics  are  divided  as  well  as  popish  missionaries. 
However,  one  Esdras,  an  apothecary,  as  he  qualifies  himself, 
has  published  a  piping-hot  pamphlet  against  Mr.  Pope's 
'■Rape  of  the  Lock,'  which  he  entitles  '■A  Key  to  the  Lock^ 
wherewith  he  pretends  to  unlock  nothing  less  than  a  plot  car- 
ried on  by  Mr.  Pope  in  that  poem  against  the  last  and  this 
present  ministry  and  government." 

He  observes  on  Sermons, — "  'Tis  not  much  to  be  ques- 
tioned, but  of  all  modern  pamphlets  what  or  wheresoever,  the 
Miglish  stitched  Sermons  be  the  most  edifying,  useful,  and 
instructive,  yet  they  could  not  escape  the  critical  Mr.  Bayle's 
sarcasm.  He  says,  '  Kepublique  des  Lettres,'  March,  1710, 
in  this  article  London,  '  We  see  here  sermons  swarm  daily 
from  the  press.  Our  eyes  only  behold  manna :  are  you  de- 
sirous of  knowing  the  reason  ?  It  is,  that  the  ministers  being 
allowed  to  read  their  sermons  in  the  pulpit,  hiiy  all  they  meet 
with,  and  take  no  other  trouble  than  to  read  them,  and  thus 
pass  for  very  able  scholars  at  a  very  cheap  rate ! ' " 

He  now  begins  more  directly  the  history  of  pamphlets, 
which  he  branches  out  from  four  different  etymologies.  He 
says,  "  However  foreign  the  word  Pamphlet  may  appear,  it 
is  a  genuine  English  word,  rarely  known  or  adopted  in  any 
other  language :  its  pedigree  cannot  well  be  traced  higher 
than  the  latter  end  of  Queen  Ehzabeth's  reign.  In  its  first 
state  wretched  must  have  been  its  appearance,  since  the 
great  linguist  John  Minshew,  in  his  '^  Guide  into  Tongues,* 
printed  in  1617,  gives  it  the  most  miserable  character  of 
which  any  libel  can  be  capable.  Mr.  Minshew  says  (and  his 
words  were  quoted  by  Lord  Chief  Justice  Holt,)  'A  Pam- 
phlet, that  is  Opusculum  Stolidorum,  the  diminutive  per- 
formance of  fools  ;  from  nav,  all,  and  nlri&oj,  I  Jill,  to  wit,  all 
places.  According  to  the  vulgar  saying,  all  things  are  fuU 
of  fools,  or  foolish  things  ;  for  such  multitudes  of  pamphlets, 
unworthy  of  the  very  names  of  libels,  being  more  vile  than 
common  shores  and  the  filth  of  beggars,  and  being  flying 


PAMPHLETS.  445 

papers  daubed  over  and  besmeared  witli  tlie  foams  of  drunk- 
ards, are  tossed  far  and  near  into  the  mouths  and  hands  of 
scoundrels ;  neither  will  the  sham  oracles  of  Apollo  be  es- 
teemed so  mercenary  as  a  Pamphlet.'  " 

Those  who  will  have  the  word  to  be  derived  fi'om  PAAr, 
the  famous  knave  of  Loo,  do  not  differ  much  from  ]Min:shew  ; 
for  the  derivation  of  the  word  Pam  is  in  all  probability  from 
n-ttv,  all ;  or  the  ichole  or  the  chief  o?  the  game. 

Under  this  jirst  etymological  notion  of  Pamplilets  may  be 
comprehended  the  vulgar  stories  of  the  Nine  Worthies  of 
the  AVorld,  of  the  Seven  Champions  of  Christendom,  Tom 
Thumb,  Valentine  and  Orson,  «fcc.,  as  also  most  of  apocryphal 
lucubrations.  The  greatest  collection  of  this  first  sort  of  Pam- 
j)hlets  are  the  Rabbinic  traditions  in  the  Talmud,  consisting 
of  fourteen  volumes  in  folio,  and  ihe  Popish  legends  of  the 
Lives  of  the  Saints,  which,  though  not  finished,  form  fifty 
folio  volumes,  all  which  tracts  were  originally  in  pamphlet 
forms. 

The  second  idea  of  the  radix  of  the  word  PampJdet  is,  that 
it  takes  its  derivations  from  jtuv,  all,  and  <;!>tAf(j,  I  love,  signify- 
ing a  thing  beloved  by  all  ;  for  a  pamphlet  being  of  a  small 
portable  bulk,  and  of  no  great  price,  is  adapted  to  every 
one's  understanding  and  reading.  In  this  class  may  be  placed 
all  stitched  books  on  serious  subjects,  the  best  of  which  fugitive 
pieces  have  been  generally  preserved,  and  even  reprinted  in 
collections,  of  some  tracts,  miscellanies,  sermons,  poems,  &c. ; 
and,  on  the  contrary,  bulky  volumes  have  been  reduced,  for 
the  convenience  of  the  public,  into  the  familiar  shapes  of 
stitched  pamj)hlets.  Both  these  methods  have  been  thu3 
censured  by  the  majority  of  the  lower  house  of  convocation, 
171L  These  abuses  are  thus  represented:  "They  have 
republished,  and  collected  into  volumes,  pieces  written  long 
ago  on  the  side  of  infidelity.  They  have  reprinted  together, 
in  the  most  contracted  manner,  many  loose  and  licentious 
pieces,  in  order  to  their  being  purchased  more  cheaply,  and 
dispersed  more  easily." 


44(>  PAMPHLETS. 

The  third  original  interpretation  of  the  word  Pamphlet 
may  be  that  of  the  learned  Dr.  Skinner,  in  his  JEtymoloyicon 
Linguce  Anglicance,  that  it  is  derived  from  the  Belgic  word 
Pampier,  signifying  a  little  paper,  or  libel.  To  this  third  set 
of  Pamphlets  may  be  reduced  all  sorts  of  printed  single 
sheets,  or  half  sheets,  or  any  other  quantity  of  single  paper 
prints,  such  as  Declarations,  Remonstrances,  Proclamations, 
Edicts,  Orders,  Injunctions,  Memorials,  Addresses,  News- 
papers, «S:c. 

The  fourth  radic;il  signification  of  the  word  Pamphlet  is 
that  homogeneal  acceptation  of  it,  viz  :  as  it  imports  any  little 
book,  or  small  volume  whatever,  whether  stitched  or  bound, 
whether  good  or  bad,  whether  sei-ious  or  ludicrous.  The  only 
proper  Latin  term  for  a  Pamphlet  is  Libellus,  or  little  book. 
This  word  indeed  signifies  in  English  an  abusive  paper  or  little 
book,  and  is  generally  taken  in  the  worst  sense. 

After  all  this  display  of  curious  literature,  the  reader  may 
smile  at  the  guesses  of  Etymologists  ;  particularly  when  he 
is  reminded  that  the  deri\"ation  of  Pumphlet  is  drawn  from 
quite  another  meaning  to  any  of  the  present,  by  Johnson, 
which  I  shall  give  for  his  immediate  gratification. 

Pa.aiphlkt,  \j)ar  un  jiUt,  Fr.  Whence  this  word  is  writ- 
ten anciently,  and  by  Caxton,  paunjlet,'\  a  small  book  ;  prop- 
erly a  book  sold  unbound,  and  only  stitched. 

The  French  have  borrowed  the  word  Pamphlet  from  us, 
and  have  the  goodness  of  not  disfiguring  its  orthography. 
Roast  Beef  is  also  in  the  same  predicament.  I  conclude  that 
Pamphlets  and  Roast  Beef  have  therefore  their  origin  in  our 
country. 

Pinkerton  favoured  me  with  the  following  curious  notice 
concerning  pamphlets : — 

"  Of  the  etymon  of  pamphlet  I  know  nothing  ;  but  that  the 
word  is  far  more  ancient  than  is  commonly  believed,  take  the 
following  proof  from  the  celebrated  Philohiblon,  ascribed  to 
Richard  de  Buri,  bishop  of  Durham,  but  written  by  Robert 
Holkot,   at  his   desire,  as    Fabricius   says,  about   the   year 


PAMPHLETS. 


447 


1344  (Fabr.  Bibl.  Medii  ^vi,  vol.  i.)  ;  it  is  in  tlie  eiglitli 
chapter. 

"  Sed,  revera,  libros  iion  libras  maluinius ;  codicesque  plus 
dileximns  quam  florenos  :  ac  panklktos  exiguos  phalerati.s 
praitulimus  palescedis." 

"  But,  indeed,  we  prefer  books  to  pounds ;  and  we  love 
manuscripts  better  than  florins;  and  we  prefer  small  jkuh- 
lihlets  to  war  horses." 

This  word  is  as  old  as  Lydgate's  time :  among  his  works, 
quoted  by  Warton,  is  a  poem  "  translated  from  a  pamjietc  in 
Frenshe." 


END     OF     VCL     J. 


6 


Wr  """"'IXJIuBrTr?  FACILITY 

^  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  U^„'^*f;*„,  35,335 

=  ^"^  ^^InIelIs,  ciLrF?,RN.A  90095-1388 


Return 


this  mateiianojhejibrary 


fromwhichitwas^oiTOwed 


m 


DKAl 


UNIVER: 


53  V 


^10SANCEI% 
^,    ^ 

P  r     /I        c: 

CO 


^l-UBRARYQ^^ 
1    § 


^.^J; 


Uraversily  ol  Calilornia  Lm  ^"9* ?,. 


%13D»iVS 


■bL: 


.5WEllNIVERy//i 

UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY  1  \ 


y< 


l606  211   392  3 


/n.\  uwiinnAV'i 


r^ 


AA    000  365  875    4 

^       ■   so 


12 

AiNn-3wv 


f 


